Guest post: Does head mean authority over?
Are men superior to women as their head?
This post is the second part in a “first” for Women in Ministry blog. I have never before taken the writing of a complementarian and posted it on my blog. To facilitate dialog, I have agreed to post Mark’s articles so that we can have a jolly good discussion/debate with those who care to participate on the issue of what “head” means. The first part of Mark’s article dealing with the context of 1 Corinthians 11 is here. These posts are carried forward from a previous post that had a lot of good discussion regarding my youtube videos on the issue of women in ministry. If you would like to get a good idea of where this discussion comes from, I refer you back to the post called Women on Trial.
Mark is a complementarian from Australia. Mark believes that the meaning of kephale in the Greek used in Paul’s writings should always be defined as authority over or superiority. While we debated with Mark on the context of 1 Corinthians 11 from his last post, this one will allow us to get into more detail about the Greek word usage. Just remember when we discuss and debate with Mark that we are to treat him with respect and deal with the argument itself. This is not the place for an attack on the person, but for a passionate debate on the issues.
I have purposely left this article of Mark’s to be the second one online since I firmly believe that any issue of word meaning is always dependent on the particular context. However, it is good to talk about meanings, and so this will be the discussion on this post.
The following is from Mark the complementarian from Australia and interaction with Mark will be in the comment section.
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by Mark the complementarian from Australia
Preface: What I hope to address in this short post is the question of whether or not ‘kephale’ would have been used by Paul in the New Testament to denote a position of authority over another. If it was a possibility was it then Paul’s intended meaning in using this word in 1 Corinthians 11 and Ephesians 5. The interpretation of this word is vital for both the Egal and Comp position to ‘prove’ their theological standpoint.
1. Let’s first address the Lexicon. As helpful as dictionaries may be to give a meaning to a word, ultimately it is the context that plays the determining factor. The most accurate and helpful Lexicon which covers the New Testament period, both biblical and non-biblical works, is the Greek-English Lexicon of the New Testament and other Early Christian Literature by Bauer, Arndt, and Gingrich. Let me again note that this is the most accurate Lexicon for the NT period, as its focus is on this specific period. I’m aware that other Lexicons have ‘source’ as a translation but no other Lexicon focuses primarily on the NT period. Let’s see its entry for ‘kephale’
“2.fig.-a. In the case of living beings, to denote superior rank…head of the husband in relation to his wife 1 Cor 11:3b; Eph 5:23a. Of Christ in relation to the church Eph 4:15; 5:23b. But Christ is not only of the church, but of the universe as a whole: Eph 1:21 and of every cosmic power: Col 2:10. The divine influence on the world results in the series: God the k. Of Christ, Christ the k. Of the man, the man the k. Of the woman 1 Cor 11:3 c, a, b.”
So convincingly the Lexicon that deals with NT texts and the NT period does see ‘kephale’ “to denote superior rank”. Interestingly it does not see ‘source’ as an acceptable translation for ‘kephale’ during this period of Greek literature. Also note although some other Lexicons (although not dealing exclusively with the NT period) do see ‘source’ as a possible translation, not one of them has ever listed ‘source’ as a metaphorical meaning for kephale when applied to persons. When ‘kephale’ is used in relation to people, the accepted meaning is always one has superiority over another.
2. One of the most helpful texts for determining Greek meanings is found in the Greek translation of the OT- LXX. But the question must be asked, does the LXX even have ‘kephale’ in it and if so, is it used to support either a translation for ‘source’ or of ‘superior rank’. Also, note the LXX was translated somewhere in the 3rd Century BC. Many scholars on both sides of the debate have recognised that the LXX does use kephale to denote a position in superior rank, even if its usage is limited. For example-
2 Samuel 22:44- You shall keep me as the head of the Gentiles: a people which I knew not served me.
Psalm 18:43- You shall keep me as the head of the Gentiles: a people whom I knew not served me.
Isaiah 7:9- The head of Samaria is the son of Remaliah
There are many others which are debated due to ‘variant readings’ (Judges 10:18, Judges 11:8, Judges 11:9, Judges 11:11, Isaiah 7:8) so I will not attach them to this post. But none the less it must be concluded that the translators for the LXX saw ‘kephale’ to denote some sort of authority. That means that Paul’s ‘bible’ used ‘kephale’ in this way. Please also note, not once is ‘kephale’ ever able to be translated as ‘source’ in the LXX.
3. Other ancient non-biblical literature–
Hermas Similitudes 7.3- “Cannot be punished in any other way than if you, the head of the house, be afflicted.”
Plutarch, Galba 4.3- “Vindex…wrote to Galba inviting him to assume the imperial power, and thus to serve what was a vigorous body in need of a head.”
Plutarch, Cicero 14.4- “ There are two bodies, one lean and wasted, but with a head, and the other headless but strong and large. What am I doing wrong if I myself become a head for this?”
Post script: Again there are many more which I could contribute here but the debates over these texts have stemmed for decades now and there is no point repeating them here. The fact is, ‘kephale’ was used and understood by other ancient Greek writers to denote an authority.
So whether one looks at Lexicons, The LXX or other ancient literature, it is evidently clear that “superior rank” was a possible meaning for ‘kephale’ in the New Testament. Not to mention the ease at which such a definition fits into the biblical framework. Paul was familiar with the LXX as a Jewish Rabbi and could easily have used ‘kephale’ in this context.
Let me finish with a challenge for everybody else. At this point, I strongly agree with Mr Grudem
Where is even one clear example of kephale used of a person to mean ‘source’ in all of Greek literature before or during the time of the New Testament? Is there even one example that is unambiguous?
Let’s be honest about things. One cannot say they are not closed to what the Bible teaches but yet ignore the bombardment of evidence to support ‘kephale’ authoritatively. If one chooses to be realistic about the evidence, they will see the error in attempting to understand 1 Cor 11 and Eph 5 as ‘source’- it is not only wrong, but a distortion of the truth of the Bible.
484 thoughts on “Guest post: Does head mean authority over?”
Re: Lexicons
Funny how Bauer leaves out 1 Cor 12 where it clearly does NOT mean superior rank. All Mark’s protestations and obfuscations aside, 1 Cor 12 most certainly is about living beings.
I’m sorry but this is all still presumption. I know these are great scholars and everything but I find the quote from the Lexicon to be stark, prejudiced opinion. Nowhere in the verses that Bauer sites is authority between the living beings even in view. Authority is not granted, exercised, or even discussed between the living beings in the relationships. Authority as a topic is completely foreign to those verses so to derive that those verses denote authority is presumptuous at best and disingenuous at worst (the original work that Bauer was derived from was written in 1910 in Germany, right at the outset of the suffrage movement. It could be a coincidence…)
I find this interesting entry by Edward Hobbs, Professor of Religion at Wellesley College, on a message thread at the ibiblio web site. Note that the entry recommends this Lexicon as the “only…answer” for students looking for a English-Greek Lexicon.
He goes on to offer this assessment of the English translators Arndt and Gingrich.
Apparently even the “best” Lexicons can have their issues. As such, I stand by my objection above.
Re: Lexical battles
“Little or no salient support…outside of his personal interpretation” – exactly my point
Good stuff, gengwell.
Of course, we can all line up plenty of resources to support our viewpoint. That has been a hallmark of these discussions with mark. But I can;t get past the text of scripture itself. I really don’t care for the opinion of anyone, great or small, educated or common, scholar or student, theologian or pew sitter. All I care about is what the text says. And the text of the New Testament NEVER says or even implies that kephale means authority over. Conversely, in several instances, the text expressly says that kephale DOES NOT grant authority. Moreover, in several places, “origin” or “source” fit better than authority even if we are speculating on the meaning. To me, the text is clear. The New Testament in general, and Paul very much in particular, is not granting any authority by using the word kephale. Talking heads can talk and write all they want to the contrary, but until they can support what they say from the text itself, it is all babble.
“But I can;t get past the text of scripture itself. I really don’t care for the opinion of anyone, great or small, educated or common, scholar or student, theologian or pew sitter.”
I totally agree. Give me a born again, sold out to Jesus Christ, steeped in the Word and prayer, echanic or janitor anyday.
But even within the entire pericope you cannot get earthly authorities out of spiritual relationships as taught in scripture.
That takes the place of the Holy Spirit and is dangerous stuff. Too much ‘chain of being’ Greek thinking. Too much bringing the worlds thinking into the Body and marriage. It is sad stuff and keeps us focused on roles, rules, preeminance, etc instead of abiding in Christ alone.
the best earthly relationships are when we are mutually submitting to one another. Serving each other and thinking less of ourselves and more of others.
@ Lin:
This is what I meant when I posted the Philippians 2 verses in one of the threads (I don’t remember which one it was). It IS sad when we are focused on roles, authority and preeminence, instead of focusing on serving one another in love. You are very right, that “the best earthly relationships are when we are mutually submitting to one another. Serving each other and thinking less of ourselves and more of others”.
From that, might iteven be seen that Jesus was “submitting” to His disciples when He washed their feet on the night He was betrayed? If I remember right, foot washing in that day was considered so lowly a job that no respectable person would even consider it; it was given to the lowest of slaves. Through that example, Jesus showed what real leadership is: lowering oneself to the least position for the benefit of the others. Unwillingness to see this is an indication of pride and worldly attachment to status, more than it is a willingess to serve as Jesus served (a willingness that is the heart of submission, not necessarily blind obedience to someone else).
PS: I’m with you, gengwall….so many talking heads out there, yet many of them,m it seems, are talking nonsense.
For other viewpoints we have the Theological Dictionary of the New Testament:
Notice that kephale is what is “first” as in the start. The very first meaning is not authority at all.
The second meaning is prominent but “authority over” is not attached to this:
The third usage is also nothing to do with authority:
Also kephale is not used in secular usage as the “head” of a society”:
There is also an interchangeableness with the term beginning in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures:
I don’t think in all fairness that anyone should try to claim that only one group of people produced an acceptable lexicon. They may be good in some things and no so good in others. Personally I find Liddel and Scott to be more balanced. 🙂
TL,
Good point! That is why I always look at several lexicons. It helps to get a wider feel of what the meaning of the word is.
The church fathers until well after the Reformation, taught that woman was subordinated by Eve’s transgression and the fall. Once that was refuted, they had to come up with something more difficult to refute. Imagine how short Cheryl’s blog would need to be if we were discussing women forever bearing the shame of Eve.
Looks like there is ample evidence that kephale has several well attested meanings, including ‘authority’ and ‘source.’ Now, it’s back to the text in context to see if any believer should have ‘authority’ over any other believer.
I am impressed by the depth of discussion concerning the lexicons. Lots of stuff I hadn’t seen before. Thanks.
It is a very common misconception that the Liddell Scott Jones is not the most accurate lexicon for Greek at the time of the NT. In fact, it spreads from 8th century BC to the Byzantine era, at least 4th century AD.
I also note that the entry supplied by Mark provides only evidence from the NT to prove the meaning of the word in the NT. Unfortunately, this is not evidence. These references are examples, but not evidence.
In fact, kephale is used to denote a person who is the origin of everything – Zeus. Of course, one may argue that Zeus was also the ruler, but the line from which this is taken does not provide this information.
Regarding the LXX, it is interesting that you only provided a part of the verse for Is. 7:9. It goes like this,
The head of Ephraim is Samaria,
and the head of Samaria is only Remaliah’s son.
In the first line, kephale is used because rosh was used to mean “capital city.” Then in the second line the translator chose to maintain concordance with the first line. I think the translator did the right thing for a translation of Hebrew poetry. I do not find this to be evidence for authority over with reference to person.
In Ps. 18, we also find an overliteral translation of rosh. It is hard to decide if David was the ruler of the gentiles, the conqueror of the gentiles or would have greater prosperity and success than the gentiles.
This ambiguity in the original Hebrew would very likely lead the translator to fall back on a literal translation.
I know that not everyone agrees with this. Some see a possibility that kephale could provide the meaning of hierarchy. Both authority over and origin/source, are secondary senses of the word. Origin has the distinction of being a native Greek use of the word, and authority or leader, has the distinction of belonging to translation literature.
All in all, it seems to me to be a rational decision of the intellect, to make the judgment, based on our human faculties, that the sense is either authority over, or origin. Therefore, I think each person is accountable to God to never use their interpretation of this verse to restrict the liberty of another human being, whether their wife or other women with whom they associate.
“Therefore, I think each person is accountable to God to never use their interpretation of this verse to restrict the liberty of another human being, whether their wife or other women with whom they associate.”
Well put, Sue.
I just can’t get it to jibe with Jesus words:
“Jesus said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who exercise authority over them call themselves Benefactors. But you are not to be like that. Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest, and the one who rules like the one who serves.” Luke 22
I’m sure everyone following this blog is tired of me posting that passage, but I don’t believe we can emphasize enough that if our interpretation of kephale does not line up with what Jesus clearly taught – He is not the one in error.
I post the same message over and over also. While non-Christians and secular thinking can be the cause of much suffering, the teaching of the submission of women is the cause of intolerable spiritual and psychic distress. If I had my way, it would be a legal crime to make anyone suffer in this way.
Hey kay, don’t tire in well doing. I love those words of Christ also. I teach them in my Bible Studies repeatedly.
And Sue, your words need to be repeated as well. There should be a law. Look how long it took for societies (other than Judaism) to make rape a punishable crime. Maybe someday we’ll have a better handle on it and fewer will be able to strut around claiming dominance because of their gender.
The epiphany has arived!
The problem with the lexicons, especially Bauer, is that they discuss only literal uses and meanings of kephale. They completely miss that Paul is unique in Greek in his metaphor’s. I do not know of any other place where the literal anatomical context of kephale is superimposed over living being relationships. The problem with Bauer is that he views Paul’s usage in the literal context of relationships between living beings. But that isn’t how Paul is using it! It is a metaphor. Bauer compeltely misses the point.
Before I look at Paul’s head/body metaphors it may be useful to look at another metaphor using “head”. Matthew 21:42 (and others): “Jesus said to them, ‘Did you never read in the Scriptures, THE STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS REJECTED, THIS BECAME THE CHIEF (kephale CORNER {stone;} THIS CAME ABOUT FROM THE LORD, AND IT IS MARVELOUS IN OUR EYES?” This verse is about Jesus, a living being. But the literal context which is applied to living beings is the one of orientation of objects. It would be utter nonsense for us to say this verse means that jesus is the “leader” of the stones used for building. Why? Because in the metaphor, the correct context to use is the literal one being applied to the living being. Therefore, “chief”, “prominent”, “first”, etc. are the correct definitions of kephale. These are all definitions which fit the context for “head” dealing with the orientation of objects to each other. Incidentally, we employ the same type of metaphor in English when we say about a living being that the should “go to the head of the class”.
Now we turn to Paul. In Paul’s metaphors, he uses the literal context of anatomy and superimposes it onto living beings. Therefore, we have to view the relationship of those living beings not in the literal, hierarchical sense that we do when we say things like “head of the company”, “head of the clan”, “head of state”, etc., but in the symbiotic sense that we do when we think of the parts of the body. There is no hierarchy in the body. In particular, the relationship between the head and the rest of the body is one of complete interdependence and mutuality. Neither can exist without the other. Both contribute equally (although differently) to the person’s existense. The body can not function (fully) without the neuro-transmitions from the brain (head) and the brain can not function without the blood and other nutrients supplied by the body. The relationship is one of mutual support and reliance. To say the head is the “leader”, or “authority over”, or “superior member” of the body would be nonsense.
It is that context that applies to Paul’s metaphors. It is that type of relationship that Paul is imposing on living beings. To miss the anatomical context is a fatal flaw in anyone’s analysis of kephale as Paul uses it. Bauer, especially, falls to this error. He seems completely blind not only to the correct context of anatomy but even to the simple fact that this is metaphor. It is quite astonishing.
But…yes there’s more…Paul doesn;t leave us hanging with a naked metaphor and no definition. First, in 1 Cor 12:14-27 he hammers home that anatomy is the context that governs his discussion of head and body. He stresses the mutuality and equality of all the parts of the body – an anatomical fact. He insists that we view the relationships of living beings in the church through this anatomical lense.
Then, seemingly to make sure we have proper definitions for his unique metaphor, especially for kephale, he describes in detail in Ephesians 5 how the living being that is the kephale relates to the living being(s) that is his body within this anatomical context. Is authority of the “head” the defining characteristic of this relationship between living beings as it is when kephale is being used literally to describe living being relatedness? Absolutely not! Love, sacrifice, service are the defining characteristics of the “head” when living beings are embedded in the anatomical context.
There is not need to search Greek literature for a definition of “head” as Paul uses it. Frankly, if you look outside of Paul, you will not find a similar usage. But we are not stranded, for Paul himself provides us the definition. Ephesians 5 shows us all we need to know about the “head” and that definition applies throughout ALL of Paul’s head/body metaphors. The most important point is that authority is nowhere in view. To be the head is to agapeo; to love unconditionally. We need know no more about Pauline kephale than that.
“There should be a law. Look how long it took for societies (other than Judaism) to make rape a punishable crime.”
And slavery, too. So what, if the master treats the slave “lovingly?” He/she is still bound under by another person. Seems like it would be a short walk back to that if wives/women can be under the authority of men.
Sue -Wasn’t it you, who pointed out that slaves had no right to wear headcoverings or refuse sex with their owners?
1 Cor 11 is a little different animal. The body is not in view so we can’t use the anatomical context. That doesn’t mean 1 Cor 11 is speaking of hierarchical relationships. Ironically, that is why “source” fits so well there, but doesn’t exactly fit in Ephesians 5. But that is a discussion better left to the sister post of this one.
gengwall,
That last post could be your magnum opus!
“Both contribute equally (although differently) to the person’s existense. The body can not function (fully) without the neuro-transmitions from the brain (head) and the brain can not function without the blood and other nutrients”
Ooowwh! I like that.
“But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it. Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it.” 24-27
“Both contribute equally (although differently) to the person’s existense. The body can not function (fully) without the neuro-transmitions from the brain (head) and the brain can not function without the blood and other nutrients”
As a professional LMT, I deal with the relationship between brain and body all the time. It is a truly symbiotic relationship in which brain and muscles, nerves, heart, lungs, lymphatic, fascia and ALL systems work in mutuality. If certain muscles are stuck, often I have to maneuver certain ways in order to encourage the brain that it’s acceptable for the muscles to let go. They are in constant communication and support of one another via the nervous system. What it is not is a situation where the brain is in charge and tells the muscles what to do. It just doesn’t work like that. It’s almost more emotional. If muscles remit pain or ‘fear’, then the brain has a choice of response to protect. But even then muscles can remit back that pain is good or bad or inbetween and brain responds appropriately. And then there is the added problem when the individual steps in to try to intellectually decide in spite of what body and brain are communicating. 🙂 We, the person using this body can royally mess everything up and often do, by ignoring what the body is saying and by overriding the usual responses of the brain. There are parameters to our righteous use of this vessel that brain and body should have equal input into.
It’s a lot more complicated than we think. 🙂
Thanks TL. What great and more detailed insight into the anatomical relationship than I certainly could have provided. Its also nice to know I’m not talking out of my……well, that’s one anatomical reference we need not explore.
Thanks gengwall. 🙂
The interesting question is how much did Paul know and what did he know. If I recollect rightly, Paul had some ideas from his era that are incorrect. But nevertheless we should take them into consideration in order to understand what he was trying to say. In his era it was thought that the head of men contained the source of new life. We have pictures of Zeus as a water fountain with water coming out of his head. I believe they also thought that the head of a person represented the whole person, because that is what we look at when we converse with someone.
Add that to the equal consideration that the body also represented the whole person and disconnect the head from the body or vice versa and we have loss of life, and we have an interesting metaphor of mutuality of strength/power and life essence. The body is the life, and the head represents or protects that life. What Paul was trying to say that made astonishing sense to people of that era, is really so far removed from what the hierarchalists claim as the Sun is from the earth.
And then, I have to wonder. Obviously Paul was inspired by the HS in this metaphor since its used several times, so that we can say God had plans for us future dwellers, who understand so much more about the body than they did.
“And then, I have to wonder. Obviously Paul was inspired by the HS in this metaphor since its used several times, so that we can say God had plans for us future dwellers, who understand so much more about the body than they did.”
I think that reality can not be ignored. There are scores of instances in the bible where the inspired writers communicate information far beyond the knowledge of their time, especially in the areas of the sciences and specifically in the area of biology. For example, many of the cleanliness laws in the OT have an immunological basis even though an understanding of immunology was non-existent at the time.
I don’t know if Paul was given additional knowledge and wrote from a understanding perspective, or wrote what he did not understand from a faith perspective. It would be an interesting study. I bet there are clues within his writing that would tip the scales one way or another.
“There are scores of instances in the bible where the inspired writers communicate information far beyond the knowledge of their time, especially in the areas of the sciences and specifically in the area of biology. For example, many of the cleanliness laws in the OT have an immunological basis even though an understanding of immunology was non-existent at the time.”
Perfect example. 🙂
At this point I suspect he was writing both from inspiration and from the knowledge from his era. But go ahead, gengwall, see if you can prove one way or the other, or both. 🙂 🙂
I meant it would be an interesting study for someone else :-O
Before Wesley declared that cleanliness was next to godliness, Satan was seen in causing pestilences, using his emissaries especially Jews and witches. The proof of this belief in the case of the Jews was seen in the fact that they escaped with a less percentage of disease than did the Christians in the great plague periods. This was doubtless due in some measure to their remarkable sanitary system, which had probably originated thousands of years before in Egypt, and had been handed down through Jewish lawgivers and statesmen. Certainly they observed more careful sanitary rules and more constant abstinence from dangerous foods than was usual among Christians; but the public at large could not understand so simple a cause, and jumped to the conclusion that their immunity resulted from protection by Satan, and that this protection was repaid and the pestilence caused by their wholesale poisoning of Christians.
but you do such a good job, gengwall. LOL hehe
TL, gengwall,
Certainly something to look into…off the cuff, it seems that it could be Inspired so that the original readers/hearers would understand and also all those who come after.
There may be significance in the fact that Paul so carefully outlines the interdependence of the body parts in 1 Cor 12 and even in Ephesians 4:15. He may be giving the audience a little biology lesson on top of everything else, just so they understand his usages of head and body.
Careful now, gengwall…I thought this study was for someone else :-O
🙂
I wish I knew the smiley for *puts hands over mouth*
:-8]
Mark says Where is even one clear example of kephale used of a person to mean ‘source’ in all of Greek literature before or during the time of the New Testament? Is there even one example that is unambiguous?
(Future posters can refer to me as “B-W” if that helps avoid confusion)
Leaving aside whether or not someone might be able to answer this question to Mark’s satisfaction, am I the only one who sees this question as irrelevant? The question seems to imply that, unless an unambiguous example exists showing that kephale must mean “source,” it cannot mean “source.” Clearly that doesn’t acknowledge how language actually works. A word may well have a primary meaning in most contexts, yet be used with a different (although generally related) way in a different context. Indeed, kephale’s primary meaning seems to be “head” (meaning a particular physical portion of a creature’s body), and other meanings (such as “authority”) stem from that. To see “head” as “source” is really no further of a stretch, and examples of this in ancient literature have been cited. If they aren’t “unambiguous” enough for Mark and/or Wayne Grudam, I would submit that it’s because the art of translation is very seldom “unambiguous” to begin with.
I like sticky tape :-#
I should probably apply some right now…LOL
or “zip your lip”
:-Z
“To see “head” as “source” is really no further of a stretch, and examples of this in ancient literature have been cited. If they aren’t “unambiguous” enough for Mark and/or Wayne Grudam, I would submit that it’s because the art of translation is very seldom “unambiguous” to begin with.”
B-W,
And if it unquestionably meant ‘authority’ in the verses at hand – it begs the question why translators would choose not to simply be clear and use the word ‘authority’ instead of ‘head’? Why make it confusing – isn’t understandability the reason for translating in the first place?
I wonder if people realize that whenever Christ and the Church are mentioned, the anatomical context is present. The bible never says “Christ is the head of the church” and leaves it at that. If he did, we could assume the normal literral living being relationship. Instead, Paul always says “Christ is the head of the body, which is his church” and the like. When it pertains to the Christ/Church relationship, the anatomical context is always there.
Nor does the bible, in Ephesians 5, say “the husband is head of the wife” without the anatomical context. It says, “the husband is the head of the wife, as Christ also is the head of the church, He Himself being the Savior of the body.” And of course, the head/body anatomical theme is further emphasized as Ephesians 5 continues.
It seems that Paul is emphatically making the point that Christ as head of the church NEVER parallels the normal literal living being “head over” context.
But, Christ is “head over” in other relationships. Note Colossians 2:10 – “and in Him you have been made complete, and He is the head over all rule and authority;” The world is definately NOT Christ’s body and therefore, when talking about Christ’s relationship to the world, the anatomical context is absent and, conversely, the normal literal living being hierarchical context is very obvious.
Ephesians 1:18-23 shows the difference and contrast in stark fashion.
Christ is both head over and head of. He is head over the world and all of its “rule and authority and power and dominion, and every name that is named”. But we are not of the world. We are the body and Christ is the head and his authority is exercised FOR us, not toward us. I hope Mark can see the distinction. Both contexts are present in this verse – the literal living being relationship which is hierarchical and grants the head authority and the metaphorical, anatomical relationship which is reciprocal (see Eph 2:6 to see exactly how reciprocal this relationship really is).
To summarize – whenever Chirst is referenced as head of the church it is in the anatomical context and therefore the relationship must be viewed as reciprocal, not hierarchical. The same is true when that relationship is used as the model for husbands and wives in Ephesians 5 – the marriage relationship, just like Christ’s marriage to his bride the church, must be viewed as reciprocal. No hierarchy exists. But that isn’t to say that Christ is never “head over” with authority. He most certainly is. The literal living being hierarchical context is very present in scripture. But the participants in that relationship are Christ and teh world, and, and this is a crucial point, His body SHARES that authority with him.
Aa mentioned above, 1 Cor 11 is a different animal. There is no body present and therefore the anatomical context doesn’t fit (even though a number of the “head” usages reference the literal anatomical head of a person). So, that discussion needs to continue in paralle with this one. But as for this topic, it is patently false to conclude that “head” means authority over just because living beings are involved. Paul is clear and consistent. His diligence demands that we understand which context he is employing before assessing what “head” means in any given text.
Imagine what an affront it was to free (non-slave) Christians when the Spirit bestowed gifts for the Body on believers who were slaves.
“But we are not of the world. We are the body and Christ is the head and his authority is exercised FOR us, not toward us. I hope Mark can see the distinction. Both contexts are present in this verse”
gengwall,
Yet another excellent point!
Thanks Kay.
You know how people say that the scriptures “come alive” for them. That is how I am feeling about this topic. These truths are just bombarding me, leaping off the (web) pages and filling my mind and it all seems so clear. The night before last I woke up at 4am and couldn’t fall back asleep because my mind was pondering Paul’s words over and over again. I literally have sat with my mouth open and thought to myself “well duh, how could I not see that before”. The last few days have been quite illuminating and stimulating.
“But we are not of the world. We are the body and Christ is the head and his authority is exercised FOR us, not toward us.”
Wonderful observation!
“I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me.” Gal.2
“And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.” Eph.1:22-23
-“the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.”
Wow – Mark probably had no idea exactly what thoughts his post would spawn. If he did he probably would not have posted it!
Gengwall – your the man…I mean your the person!
With regards to anatomy and how complex the head body relationship is, it is also amazingly simple. I once heard someone say that everybody dies from the exact same condition. A lack of oxygen to the brain. It is true!
I love what I have just learnt. Thanks guys!
I hope Mark reviews all of the Christ/Head – Church/Body verses. I list them below. The reciprocal language is overwhelming. Conversely, authoritarian language is completely absent. I know it is a difficult concept to envision Christ as not in an authority position over the church regardless of context. Indeed, in other contexts, Christ is in authority over the church. But not in the anatomical, marital metaphors. That is a hard truth for any of us. But Jesus himself said “I have not come to be served, but to serve”. Jesus and his bride do indeed have an egalitarian marriage. Scripture loudly, inarguably, and unequivacably proclaims this truth.
1 Corinthians 12 (the whole chapter, but vs. 21 in particular) Although not an actual Christ/Church passage, it is a passage which clarifies Paul’s ideas about the body including the head. It is also the clearest statement Paul makes about the equality across the body.
Ephesians 1:18-23 Make sure to read through to 2:7 to see all that is in store for the body.
Ephesians 4:4-16
Ephesians 5:21-32
Colossians chapters 1 and 2. There is so much here it really all needs to be read.
p.s. Of course, I don’t know if this will help. Mark doesn’t see any unity or equality in Genesis 2 and I think the chapter screams of unity and equality between Adam and Eve. Conversely, he sees authority there while I have searched in vain to find it. So Mark may also be deaf to what the NT verses have to say about Christ and His bride. We shall see.
“Gengwall – your the man…I mean your the person!”
Dave,
Awake and in a good humor, I see!
Yes, gengwall has really been “illuminating.” I think he’s plugged into the main socket today.
Wonder if Mark’s awake yet…
I’ll try to tune in over the weekend but I have a jam packed schedule. Y’all may have to pick up the ball for me.
I haven’t had a chance to read all the posts so forgive me if i comment on something someone already said.
1. Lexicons are only helpful, not the determining factor. I said that at the beginning. However Bauer’s lexicon covers extensively the Nt period which is what we are interested in. The Lidell-Scott does not. It does a broad survey. Also not sure if any one else is aware of this, but the editor of the Lidell Scott publicly stated his mistake in having ‘source’ as a rendering for ‘kephale’. But that aside i think we all agree that the context decides.
2. The LXX, like it or, whether it is limited or not does have an authoratative meaning in some uses of kephale. NOT ONCE COULD ‘SOURCE’ EVER BE A POSSIBLE TRANSLATION FOR KEPHALE IN THE LXX (capitals for emphasis not shouting).
3. The text Sue quotes, is a variant reading. I know she will dispute this, but it is. Since i have ignored all variant reading which show authority, and there are alot, we should also ignore the Orphic Fragment. But of course Egals won’t do this, because it is the closest thing they have to remain on a ‘source’ interpretation. BUt the truth is, it is a weak example, and should not be used as the basis for interpretation for the NT. It was written 6th Century BC, where as the Bauer Lexicon and the LXX are much closer to the period we are interested in.
4. Regarding Bauer ignoring the metaphorical uses- gengwell you are wrong. IF you again look at the entry i gave from that lexionary you will see that this entry is for ‘figurative’ uses, ie metaphorical. His entry for ‘literal’ translations, is the literal head on top of our shoulders.
This is all i can offer atm. I haven’t been able to comment more on the other post yet. I’ll get there soon. I hope people can see that ‘authority’ was a possible rendering for kephale in Paul’s letters, and in fact there is far more evidence to support this view over a ‘source’ translation.
I love the posts you guys have put up here while I have been away. Good work! Today is a study day for me so it is busy, busy, busy.
I will have to catch up more after the weekend.
Ah, I see that Mark is indeed awake! Good day (is that how you say it in Aussie territory?)
I don’t have time to comment right now, but I appreciate that the lexicons are not the determining factor of what the word means. It is indeed the context which is what the previous post was about. I do hope that you will find time to go back and catch up on all the questions to you that people had.
“4. Regarding Bauer ignoring the metaphorical uses- gengwell you are wrong. IF you again look at the entry i gave from that lexionary you will see that this entry is for ‘figurative’ uses, ie metaphorical. His entry for ‘literal’ translations, is the literal head on top of our shoulders.”
““2.fig.-a. In the case of living beings, to denote superior rank”
The case of living beings and their relationships may be figurative in Greek (it is not in English where “head” has multiple literal meanings) but Bauer still misses the metaphor Paul is using. In all of the cases Bauer lists (and in several more), “head” is used in the anatomical sense and then applied in that sense to the relationships of living beings. Where is Bauer’s recognition of the anatomical context? It isn’t there. Bauer thinks these verses are synonymous with “head of the clan”, etc., but they aren’t. “Head of the clan” and its equivalents have no anatomical reference. These verses do. Bauer makes a false comparison by ignoring the existence of the anatomical context. Yet it is the anatomical context that is the preeminent context for the verse, for in the anatomical relationship between head and body, authority is not in view.
Also – All metaphors are figures of speech but not all figures of speech are metaphors. Bauer’s recognition of kephale as figurative in Paul’s usage is NOT an admission or recognition that kephale is being used metaphorically. Metaphors compare two things, saying one is the other. What two things are being compared in Bauer’s entry?
I was certainly not aware that the editor had made a public statement. I was aware the Grudem claims he has a letter from him…but I am not aware of other people seeing the letter! I might also add that Lidell & Scott said what they said (before feminism) for a reason. Sadly, if indeed the editor has said it was a mistake, he has listened to Grudem’s conclusions without looking at Grudem’s research. Hardly sounds like a good editor to me! 🙂
It is a beautiful morning in Sydney town and my son’s team is batting!
In Paul’s metaphors, the anatomical context is clearly the vehicle and Christ is clearly the tenor. Note – the tenor is ascribed the attributes of the vehicle. Christ is ascribed the attributes of an anatomical head and the church is ascribed the attributes of an anatomical body. Those attributes in the anatomical context are reciprocal and interdependent. Moreover, the are not hierarchical.
Bauer completely misses this because he completely misses (or ignores or purposely omits) that the usage is metaphorical.
Given the relationship between the body and the head, as you have described gengwall, why do comps NOT talk about “bodyship”? Such is the emphasis on what is seen as more important (because of a human obsession with authority)!
I have searched and searched for anyone who has actually laid eyes upon the supposed letter Grudem is claimed to have received – I think he must have read the top secret letter and then eaten it. Surely the editor would have had more folks to apologize to than just Grudem for an error like that.
“bodyship”?
I can’t imagine why. 😉
It isn’t a public letter unless it is in the public domain. I am wondering if it is possible that Grudem reinterpreted the letter too. Kind of like a lettership. 8)
“editor of the Lidell Scott publicly stated his mistake in having ’source’ as a rendering for ‘kephale’”
Actually he never states his mistake at all. First it was not his mistake (if indeed it was a mistake) as he is the editor. They did not have the funding for a full rework so the meaning for kephale was not changed. He has not made any mistake, nor does he say he has. Personally I think it would have been a mistake to change it!!
Also, he never says it was a mistake if you read thequotes closely. Although he says he is in “broad agreement” and says things like “unfortunate”, I think he is actually careful (and polite) to not simply say it is falt out wrong.
But I understand you taking it the way you did Mark, as I think it was the way Grudem was hoping you would interpret what he wrote!
Anit-spam word is “charge” and my battery is going flat……………
Sorry, he says “unwise”, not “unfortunate”…
Anit-spam word is “toast” and I have 8% power remaining.
Dave,
Huh? You use batteries on your computer? You Aussies are really strange.
I was at the cricket on the laptop Cheryl which has a battery. Regarding your second point, yes, we are strange!
Oh, boy, a blond moment. Yes, some people use laptops away from electricity.
Huh, you let crickets run on your computer? 😉 Yup strange, very strange.
I should say that the reason I had a blond moment is ’cause my laptop battery is always dead. It won’t work without power. Its very old.
Cheryl Cheryl Cheryl…
Please look at what I wrote with the same attention to detail as you would use with 1 Tim 2! I was AT the cricket (capitals NOT for emphasis…I AM SHOUTING!!). The crickets were not on the computer…I was on the computer, which is why the battery was flat. I weigh 105kg.
🙂
Hey, I was reading carefully!
yada yada yada…cricket on the laptop…yada yada yada
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Well you definitely corrected me!
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yada, yada, yada, …I was on the computer, which is why the battery was flat.
Yup, like I said, you blokes are strange! (We are literalists here in Canada, no pun intended!)
I cannot compete with your pics!
Who is this yada of whom you speak? Brother of yoda?
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Cheryl, are we the only two people without a life hanging out for some one, anyone to make a comment?
Sorry, I didn’t know how to translate “yada” into Aussie slang. Definitely not a brother of yoda!
I guess we are the only two hanging out here tonight (its Friday night). I am procrastinating on the dishes. Kind of feeling guilty too….. Okay, guilty enough, I’m leaving too. See you! 8)
““editor of the Lidell Scott publicly stated his mistake in having ’source’ as a rendering for ‘kephale’”
Actually he never states his mistake at all. First it was not his mistake (if indeed it was a mistake) as he is the editor. “
An editor has no business adding or taking away from the authors words, without the author’s permission, especially in the case of a lexicon. He didn’t do the research.
hey Cheryl and Dave. It’s only 4:16 here.
You guys need to plug in to some power. I’m always plugged in. 🙂
Sorry, Dave, I just had to edit your comment so you could compete. I have a silly bug tonight.
I am really going to go and do the dishes!
where have you two been getting the pictures. I’m jealous!!
Hey, there TL,
Glad you popped in. I was having way too much fun and couldn’t keep myself serious. I’ll leave Dave in your hands.
but I don’t know where the pics are!! 🙁
Just one more comment….
TL,
I am a video editor. I have lots of pictures. I also can make them appear on this blog. If you need one…I’m the gal.
G’day I am really out of here now.
LSJ is quite authoritative and does not reflect the theological presuppositions of those who want to prove something about a certain text. It is a general lexicon for the language.
Grudem wrote about Glare,
“With regard to my study of kephal?, he writes, “I am in broad agreement with your conclusions.” He adds, speaking of the usage in the Septuagint (the Greek translation of the Old Testament), “kephal? is the word normally used to translate the Hebrew r’osh, and this does seem frequently to denote leader or chief without much reference to its original anatomical sense, and here it seems perverse to deny authority” (italics added). ”
This is a very odd statement since kephale is NOT normally used for r’osh when it refers to a person. This is one sure clue that Grudem does not have the evidence he needs because here he has manufactured support that is entirely unwarranted. This is based on a false premise.
The text Sue quotes, is a variant reading. I know she will dispute this, but it is. Since i have ignored all variant reading which show authority, and there are alot, we should also ignore the Orphic Fragment.
Mark,
This is completely ridiculous. You don’t know any such thing.
Of course, the Orphic fragment is a variant. The phrase appears 6 or 7 times in Greek literature, sometimes with arche and sometimes with kephale. That is the whole point of the thing. Kephale is a variant of arche.
Now what do I disallow for being a variant? I can only think of the translation phrase “the heads of staffs” for “heads of tribes.” This is easily shown to be a literal translation of a certain Hebrew phrase. I’ll check what the other variants are but I can hardly discount them if I don’t know them, can I?
The Orphic example was an important text in Orphism, which is an important rival to Christianity. The example was first found in the 6th century but has many other occurrences.
Once again, Mark, if God has left it up to our human judgement whether to allow slavery or not, and we decide against it, why should we not all decide against the submission of women, which holds substantial terror for every women under the authority of a fallible human male.
I don’t discount Judges 10:18 for example. I regard the use of kephale for Jephthah to be a possible counter example because I don’t think Paul would chose a usage that was associated with Jephthah. That is my human opinion, that’s all.
Thank you for your faithful research Sue. There are not many who can do the research who are willing to take the time, as you have.
And Cheryl, thanks for the pic. 🙂
Sue,
Thanks for that information! It sure helps to have someone here who is a good Greek scholar who has studied the evidence outside of the Scriptures.
I just purchased Liddell & Scott Greek-English Lexicon today along with a Jewish encyclopedia and a 4 Vol Jewish Law set to add to all the other resources I have. I think they will be very valuable additions to my work in the Scriptures.
“An editor has no business adding or taking away from the authors words, without the author’s permission, especially in the case of a lexicon. He didn’t do the research.”
TL,
You can be sure the author would not appreciate it, God rest his soul. Maybe Glare felt some remorse and that explains his less than adamant denunciation. It reminds me of a sideways apology.
Cheryl,
Is there some way you could link to or move the two comments Susanna Krizo made on “Do the Genders have different functions?” Lots of relevant information for this post.
Here is Catherine Clark Kroeger on the Orphic fragment,
“In the case under discussion, a line of Orphic poetry has been found in the works of seven later writers, running all the way from the sixth century b.c. to about a.d. 1,000. Here we discover the word kephal? (head) being used interchangeably
with arch? (beginning, source or point of origin). The fragment speaks of Zeus as the beginning, middle, and end of all things. The interchange of two terms recurring in the same quotation
is important because it demonstrates that in the seven writers’
minds they have the same semantic value and may be freely exchanged. It is the more valuable because the usages extend over so long a period of time.
For example, the oldest, an Orphic fragment probably from the sixth century b.c., declares:
Zeus was born first, Zeus last, god of the bright bolt:
Zeus is the head [kephal?], Zeus the middle, from Zeus are all things made.
Sometimes, however, the last line runs, “Zeus the beginning [arch?], Zeus the middle, and Zeus the end.”
Four times Zeus is called head, kephal?,26 and three times arch?, source or beginning.27 Thus, the two terms appear synonymous in this context, as has been noted by various classical scholars.”
Hi everyone,
Curious as to whom to believe – egalitarians or complementarists – I begun a research four years ago. I found that despite all the fancy rhetoric and emotional appeals, modern complementarists uphold a reversed theology compared to the one which begun at the end of the second century when Gen 3.16 became the source of the woman’s subjection. By the fourth century the belief in the sole guilt of Eve and female subjection as a punishment for her sin had become a permanent part of traditional theology. Jerome would immortalize it for the generations to come in the Vulgate by his change of Gen 3.16 from “Your turning shall be to the man” into “Under the man’s authority will you be.” During the Millennium of the Vulgate few knew of the change and the Reformers did not do much better with their choice of “desire” which fueled the witch craze and is still used to argue that women desire to rule over men. Jerome, Augustine and Chrysostom all agreed: the woman was created equal to the man and it was only after sin that the woman was subjected to the man. Due to the heavy emphasis on virginity and celibacy, as a replacement for a martyr’s death, Jerome argued that a virgin and continent wife was equal to the man, while the sexually active married woman was subject and inferior to the man. Already Cyprian (middle third century) had argued the same.
For eleven centuries Gen 2.18-24 was considered to teach equality, but with the rise of Scholasticism and the synthesis of Aristotle’s philosophy and neo-Platonic Augustinianism, the creation account was changed. In the thirteenth century Thomas Aquinas argued in Summa Theologica that the woman is a misbegotten male who lacks the man’s reason, wherefore she must be ruled by the man. He also considered Gen 3.16, which he considered servile in nature, a fitting punishment for the woman’s sin. Thomas’s twofold subjection, based on Aristotle’s philosophy and Jerome’s mistranslation of Gen 3.16, was absorbed by Scholastic theology and although the reformers rejected Scholasticism, their followers quickly reverted to Scholastic logic (Melanchton changed Luther’s theology and Beza Calvin’s) in an effort to support their reformed theology in the face of Catholic opposition. Thus the twofold subjection was not challenged until Aristotle fell from grace at the end of the nineteenth century with the rise of modern biology, sociology and psychology. The inferior woman disappeared from secular thinking and the church dropped the term although they continued to uphold the dogma which was based on the woman’s assumed inferiority. In 1980’s egalitarians successfully challenged the old dogma of Gen 3.16 being God’s commandment which opened the door for the full rejection of the reversed complementarist theology.
To summarize:
1. The first 150 years: the church taught the full equality of all humans
2. 3rd to 13th century: Gen 3.16 becomes the source of the woman’s subjection
3. 13th- 20th century: Gen 2.18-24 and Gen 3.16 teaches female subjection
4. 1980- : Gen 2.18-24 is the source of the woman’s subjection, Gen 3.16 is a consequence of sin
I found that kephale (head), hypotasso (submit), kurios (lord) and hypoakouo (obey) were all Latinized as a result of the era of the Vulgate when theology was thought and written in Latin. Kephale, for example, was given the meaning “ruler” in Thomas Aquinas’s Summa, but I could not find it earlier in Christological writings. The following writers all gave the word the meaning “beginning.”
Ignatius, disciple of John the Apostle (30-107)
Irenaues (ca 180)
Tertullian (145-200)
Clement of Alexandria (153-217)
Origen (185-254)
Cyprian (200-258)
Novatian (210-280)
Arnobius (297-303)
Athanasius (298-373)
St. Basil (329-379)
Gregory of Nazianzen (329-389)
St Ambrose (340-397)
Rufinus (344-408)
Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia (359)
Four discourses against the Arians (356-360)
Hilary of Potiers (died 367)
John Chrysostom (347-407)
Aurelius Augustine (354-430)
Socrates Scholasticus (born 379)
Leo the Great (Ca. 390- 461)
The majority of the writers are from the fourth century because most of what we have left from the early church is from the High Patristic era when the church was safe from persecution. The most enlightening aspect of the usage of kephale was Augustine who used the word frequently (I found about 350 pages worth of quotes from his writings). When writing about men and women, he gave the word the meaning “ruler,” but when he wrote about Christ and the Church, he gave the word the meaning “literal head” or “beginning.” When the factor that Augustine synthesized Neo-Platonism with his theology is taken into consideration, it becomes evident that he used Plato’s soul-body dichotomy to explain the relationship between men and women, but he would not compromise his Christology with such a departure from orthodox Christianity. He was also careful to point out that the man’s rule began after sin and did not belong to original creation.
Grudem claims in the Appendix found in “Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood” that the Septuagint proves that kephale meant ruler in the third century BC. I checked every instance in which rosh is translated with kephale and found his claim to be false. The Septuagint uses overwhelmingly words such as archos (“leader”), arche (“beginning,” “ruler”) and hegeoumai (“leader”) when the meaning “ruler” is needed in the text. Kephale is used when the context speaks of a literal head, “a beginning,” “summing up” or the extreme end of an object. His other proof was Hermas, in which kephale tou oikou is found, and although Grudem uses it as an early proof, the term is not found in Greek writings, for the correct Greek term is oikodespoteo. Incidentally Hermas was an Ebionite, a Hebrew Christian, and thus he did not choose the right idiom in his writing, for “head of household” in Hebrew becomes kephale tou oikou when translated literally into Greek. The strongest proof Grudem offers is from Plato, but as I argue in my book, that a fourth-century BC Greek philosopher gave the word the implicit meaning “ruler” does not mean that a first-century theologian would give the word the explicit meaning “ruler.” As already noted, this meaning, when relating to men and women, was popularized by Augustine who used Plato’s arguments in his theology.
I found that most of the arguments used by Grudem & co in “Recovering Biblical Manhood and Womanhood” are based on contradictions, paradoxes and false exegesis because they wish to uphold a theology which is based on Thomas Aquinas’s Scholasticism, while trying to, at the same time, reject the foundation. If anyone is interested, the full research is available in book form, “When Dogmas Die,” published by Creation House, Strang Communications. I am also happy to share more with you here.
Susanna Krizo
Here are two excerpts from my book which deal with the question of the subjection of the Son to the Father and how it relates to the assumed subjection of the woman to the man. (I didn’t feel like re-writing the text again, which is why is so great to have the copyright to an already written text!)
Chapter 8
Kephale is given the meaning “authority over” in 1 Corinthians 11:3 in order to create a hierarchy in which the man rules over the woman. But although complementarism models the woman’s subjection after the Son’s assumed subjection to the Father, in the early church, as the inferiority of the woman was incorporated into theology, the subjection of the woman became the model for the subjection of the Son in the many heresies that challenged the church. Thus we find that in Arian theology, Christ owes thank to humans for He was believed to have been made for them.
“First, the Son appears rather to have been for us brought to be, than we for Him; for we were not created for Him, but He is made for us; so that He owes thanks to us, not we to Him, as the woman to the man. ‘For the man,’ says Scripture, ‘was not created for the woman, but the woman for the man.’ Therefore, as ‘the man is the image and glory of God, and the woman the glory of the man,’ so we are made God’s image and to His glory; but the Son is our image, and exists for our glory. And we were brought into being that we might be; but God’s Word was made, as you must hold, not that He might be; but as an instrument for our need, so that not we from Him, but He is constituted from our need.”
The early church theologians of the patristic era refused to make the Son subject to the Father although they subjected the woman to the man. Chrysostom, for example, explicitly refuted the heresy of the Son’s inferiority and subjection, which was modeled after the subjection of the woman.
“But the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.” Here the heretics rush upon us with a certain declaration of inferiority, which out of these words they contrive against the Son. But they stumble against themselves. For if “the man be the head of the woman,” and the head be of the same substance with the body, and “the head of Christ is God,” the Son is of the same substance with the Father. “Nay,” say they, “it is not His being of another substance which we intend to show from hence, but that He is under subjection.” What then are we to say to this? In the first place, when any thing lowly is said of him conjoined as He is with the Flesh, there is no disparagement of the Godhead in what is said, the Economy admitting the expression. However, tell me how thou intendest to prove this from the passage? “Why, as the man governs the wife, saith he, “so also the Father, Christ.” Therefore also as Christ governs the man, so likewise the Father, the Son. “For the head of every man,” we read, “is Christ.” And who could ever admit this?”
Chrysostom argued that it was impossible for kephale to mean “authority over,” for had Paul meant to speak of rule and subjection he would have used the example of a slave and a master instead of marriage. Neither did Chrysostom agree with those who found a similarity between 1 Corinthians 11 and Ephesians 5, for if we were to understand kephale in the same way in both, “extreme absurdity will result.” Therefore he argued that we should reject “these particulars,” and “accept the notion of a perfect union, and the first principle,” and even here recognize that which is “too high for us and suitable to the Godhead, for both the union is surer and the beginning more honorable.”
Gregory of Nazianzen called the subjection of the Son to the Father “a new theology,” indicating that it was not part of the apostolic tradition.
“For as these low earthly minds make the Son subject to the Father, so again is the rank of the Spirit made inferior to that of the Son, until both God and created life are insulted by the new Theology. No, my friends, there is nothing servile in the Trinity, nothing created, nothing accidental, as I have heard one of the wise say. ”
Yet, Thomas R. Schreiner maintains in his essay Head Coverings, Prophecies and the Trinity that there is subordination within the Trinity, because “the Son has a different function or role from the Father,” and because “the Son willingly submits Himself to the Father’s authority.” This subordination to authority is seen in that the “Father commands and sends; the Son obeys and comes into the world to die for our sins.” Schreiner attempts to prove the subordination of the Son from 1 Corinthians 15:28, but by doing so He contradicts himself, “It is clear that this subjection of the Son to the Father is after his earthly ministry, so how anyone can say that there is no hint of a difference or order or role within the Trinity is difficult to see.” But if the subjection of the Son begins after his earthly ministry, how could the Son have been subject to the Father before his incarnation? Because complementarists give kephale the meaning “authority over” in 1 Corinthians 11:3, they create a triple subjection of the Son, which resembles the twofold of the woman found in the Summa, for if the Son was subject to the Father from the beginning, his subjection became less voluntary after His incarnation and will become even less voluntary after He delivers the kingdom to the Father. But such a concept is not only absurd, it is impossible, for how can the Son be forced into subjection? Tertullian rejected the subjection of the Son due to the impossibility of the proposition.
“Since therefore he [Marcion] is obliged to acknowledge that the God whom he does not deny is the great Supreme, it is inadmissible that he should predicate of the Supreme Being such a diminution as should subject Him to another Supreme Being, for He cases (to be Supreme), if He becomes subject to any. Besides, it is not the characteristic of God to cease from any attribute of His divinity – say, from His supremacy. ”
…
Chapter 9
The twofold subjection of Thomas Aquinas altered the translation and interpretation of 1 Corinthians perhaps more than any other chapter in the Bible; consequently it is considered one of the most difficult chapters to interpret. Thomas R. Schreiner writes in his essay Head Coverings, Prophecies and the Trinity, ”The difficulties with this text could lead one to say that it should not be used to establish any doctrine or teaching on the role relationship of men and women.” Although he is correct in rejecting the proposition that we should not use the chapter, he rejects also the interpretation of the chapter which removes the inherent difficulties.
As the woman’s subjection as a created order was challenged, 1 Corinthians 11 was re-interpreted to reflect the change, or, rather, the return to the theology of the early church. Instead of rule and submission, the text was viewed as teaching the interdependency of men and women based on their equality as a created order. Because 1 Corinthians 11 is one of the cornerstones of complementarian theology, the re-interpretation has not been accepted largely due to the false interpretation of the word kephale found in verse 3.
“Another argument used for the translation “source” in 1 Corinthians 11.3 is that Paul says woman came from man in verse 11:8, and this obviously suggests the idea of source. Surely this understanding of verse 8 is correct, but verse 8 does not explicate the meaning of head in verse 3. Instead, Paul uses this argument from source to prove that woman is the glory of man.”
Schreiner neglects the connection of eikoon (“image”) and kephale (“head”) in verse 7 because he gives kephale the incorrect meaning “authority over.” “A beginning” and “a first principle,” the meanings Chrysostom gave kephale in his homily are synonymous to an archetype of which the other person is an image, “for images are the forms of their archetypes.” According to Origen, “The true God, then, is ‘The God,’ and those who are formed after Him are gods, images, as it were, of Him the prototype. But the archetypal image, again, of all these images is the Word of God, who was in the beginning, and who by being with God is at all times God.” Gregory of Nyssa explained, “[T]hen all the Cause beyond, which is God over all, is found through Our Lord, Who is the Cause of all things; nor, indeed, is it possible to gain an exact knowledge of the Archetypal Good, except as it appears in the (visible) image of that invisible.” In other words, the archetype is the source of the image, which possesses the characteristics of its source.
According to Gregory of Nazianzen, the same attributes that are found in the archetype must also be found in the image. However, the image is not an identical copy of the archetype, as described by Theorodet (d. 458) in a dialogue between Eranistes and Orthodoxus.
Eran.—The type must have the character of the archetype.
Orth.—Is man called an image of God?
Eran.—Man is not an image of God, but was made in the image of God.
Orth.—Listen then to the Apostle. He says: “For a man indeed ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of God.”
Eran.—Granted, then, that he is an image of God.
Orth.—According to your argument then he must needs have plainly preserved the characters of the archetype, and have been uncreate, uncompounded, and infinite. He ought in like manner to have been able to create out of the non existent, he ought to have fashioned all things by his word and without labour, in addition to this to have been free from sickness, sorrow, anger, and sin, to have been immortal and incorruptible and to possess all the qualities of the archetype.
Eran.—Man is not an image of God in every respect.
Orth.—Though truly an image in the qualities in which you would grant him to be so, you will find that he is separated by a wide interval from the reality.
Eran.—Agreed.
Orth.—Consider now too this point. The divine Apostle calls the Son the image of the Father; for he says “Who is the image of the invisible God?”
Eran.—What then; has not the Son all the qualities of the Father?
Orth.—He is not Father. He is not uncaused. He is not unbegotten.
Eran.—If He were He would not be Son.
Orth.—Then does not what I said hold good; the image has not all the qualities of the archetype?
Eran.—True
A copy is called a “shadow” in the New Testament (Heb. 8:5). For example, the Law was a shadow of Christ, whom Paul portrays as the body or true substance (Col. 2:17). A shadow is the opposite of an image (Heb. 10:1) for whereas the copy is temporary and is destroyed when the substance is provided (Heb. 10:9) an image co-exists with the archetype, its source. Thus, as the image of the Father, the Son is similar to the Father in essence and power, but He is not the identical to the Father, for He is not unbegotten. The man is in the image of God in the inner person, but he is enclosed in a body, whereas God is a spirit. The woman is also in the image of God in the inner person for she is a human being, but her body is in the image of the first man, wherefore it is different from his.
Thank you Susanna for posting this information. I have transferred it from the original location where you posted at http://strivetoenter.com/wim/2009/10/16/do-the-genders-have-different-functions.
I hope that you continue to follow this blog as I think you have a lot of value to add here.
Again, welcome to my blog!
Susanna,
Good stuff! I found it fascinating, and I hope, with Cheryl, that you’ll hang around here. Thanks for bringing the discussion up a couple of intellectual notches. 🙂
“Once again, Mark, if God has left it up to our human judgement whether to allow slavery or not, and we decide against it, why should we not all decide against the submission of women, which holds substantial terror”
Sue,
If I may add to that, we are all familiar with the argument Jesus chose 12 male disciples as a reason to withhold some ministry positions in the Church from women. It is also important to note that Jesus did not publicaly condemn slavery during his earthly ministry either. The teachings of Christ and the salvation that He offers changes hearts. That changed slavery.
We also should note that Jesus only picked 12 Jews. Was this showing us that Gentiles are not to be in ministry or in leadership? Who would dare to suggest such a thing? But prejudice allows men freely to “suggest” such a thing regarding women.
To understand the meaning of kephale we must also take a look at hypotasso (submit) because it is given the meaning “under authority” in complementarian theology. First of all, the English word “submit” is derived from the Latin word “subicio” which has the meaning “to place under, to subject” which is a literal translation of hypotasso (hypo: under and tasso: set). However, “hypo” means also “with,” hence hypotasso has also the meaning “to associate with.” In 1 Cor 16.15-16 “tasso” is translated “devoted” wherefore hypotasso can also be translated “devoted to.” Although “subicio” is a literal translation, it does not carry over the finer nuances of the Greek word, hence when the Latin Bible was solely in use, the word begun to be understood in its Latin meaning, instead of its original Greek.
It is common to understand hypotasso as a military term (as someone set under the authority of a superior), but in Luke 7.8 the centurion referred to himself as being “placed under authority” (hypo exousian tassomenos), signifying that he possessed authority. The soldiers were “hypo” (under) him, not hypotasso. If hypotasso has the meaning “under authority” in Luke 7.8 the centurion’s words become meaningless, for he compared himself to Jesus who needed only to say a word to heal his child, i.e. he had the authority to just say a word and things were done. We find the same in Eph 1 where the powers and authorities are said to be “hypo” (under) the feet of Christ, whereas the Church, the body of Christ, is seated with Him in the heavenly places. It is impossible for kephale to mean “authority” or “ruler” in Eph 1.22 for it would leave a decapitated head over which Christ rules and would make Eph 4 meaningless. Note that Eph 1 comes before Eph 4 and the latter context assumes that the reader is already familiar with the concept of Christ being the literal head of the Church, his literal body, in a metaphorical sense. Even Grudem cannot get around this fact for he argues that kephale must mean a literal head in Eph 4 for the metaphor to make sense, although he tries to make kephale in Eph 1 to mean a “ruler.” But as already mentioned it would make the Body of Christ headless. Also note that hypotasso is not present in Eph 1, but it does appear in Eph 5, where hypo is absent, wherefore hypotasso and hypo do not have the same meanings.
Have you ever noticed that complementarists never cite a verse which describes how the Church submits to Christ? This is because the only place in the Bible which mentions the subjection of the Church to God is Jas 4 and there we find the word “antitasso” (resist). It is commonly assumed that the antonym of hypotasso is “epitasso” (command) but these two are never found together. Instead we find hypotasso and antitasso together in three contexts: Rom 12.16-13.7, James 4:1-10 and 1 Pet. 5:4-11. The reason for this is that hypotasso means to cleave to someone with such devotion that one is not moved regardless of circumstances, as a soldier would never leave his fellow soldier alone in the battle. Antitasso describes the opposite: resisting someone like an enemy would. As has so often been pointed out by egalitarians, kephale is not a military term, hence it cannot describe a “general” in a marriage, wherefore hypotasso cannot signify a “private” who must obey the commands of the superior. Instead both are soldiers of Christ and ought to cleave to each other (literally be glued to each other), for the purpose of Ephesians 5 is not to describe a relationship of authority and obedience, but to describe the creation of a one flesh union which cannot be absolved without destroying both the head and the body.
To summarize: Kephale cannot mean “authority over” since its corresponding word hypotasso does not mean “being under authority.”
Kephale is, in fact, a military term and is found in certain annals of warfare. It means a small unit, a raiding party, or the right hand phalanx, a group which can be easily deployed to go ahead. This meaning is also found in the LXX in the first chapter of Job.
This is one reason why it is highly unlikely that it could ever have been used in conversation to refer to a leader or general. The fact that this expression is found in later Greek in a comparison as refering to the leader, is simply because in an explained simile, anything can be compared to anything, as long as the author makes this explicit. It is also likely that Latin had influenced the use of the term with reference to warfare, since warfare was in the hands of the Romans, and caput did mean leader in Latin.
But standing alone, no kephale in native Greek cannot refer to a leader.
Susanna,
I just want to say hi and I do look forward to reading your book, when I get a chance. I may quibble with a few details, but overall I agree that complementarians have constructed a novel theology that has little in common with historic Christianity.
Susanna,
Again, very good thoughts.
As you said, it is interesting to note that the church is not placed “under” the feet of Christ as we are the feet of Christ as we are His body.
The idea that only men ought to be in leadership because the Twelve were all men is found in the fourth century document called “Constitutions of the Holy Apostles,” which the creator attempted to pass as a first century work. In the same work the idea that the body should not govern the head appears, which is consistent with the fourth century theology of Augustine. Earlier theologians such as Barnabas (100) and Irenaeus (180) compared the Twelve disciples to the twelve tribes of Israel since the early church believed -rightly or wrongly – that they were the new Israel. The same thought is expressed in Rev 21.14 where these two are grouped together.
In the same era the infamous Epiphanius made Junia a man. Grudem’s attempt to use Epiphanius as a proof that Junia was a man is a prime example of sloppy scholarship. Epiphanius wrote: “the Iounias, of whom [hou] Paul makes mention, became bishop of Apameia of Syria.” Hou is a masculine pronoun and hence Junia ought to be a man. But as Epp so well argues in his book Junia, the First Woman Apostle, Junia was a woman and there really is no getting around it. Since Junia was a woman, Epiphanius and Grudem provide a very compelling argument for the existence of a woman bishop. (We know from Cyprian that apostles were often called bishops) And if even one woman was an apostle, the sex of the Twelve has absolutely nothing to do with modern church leadership since it did not restrict leadership to men.
Consider when the meaning of kephale became a problem. It was after Gen 3.16 was returned to its original position as a description of a consequence of sin. Since complementarists have to use a solely creation based argument for female subjection, 1 Cor 11 and Eph 5 must support the argument or they do not have one to begin with since 1 Cor 14.34-5 has lost its force for what is “the law” if it is not Gen 3.16? (the new argument that it refers to Gen 2 does not work for the creation account is always called “the beginning,” never “the law”) If kephale does not mean authority over, Gen 2 cannot describe the beginning of the man’s authority.
Hi Cheryl,
thanks for the welcome!
Sue, yes, kephale is used in the Septuagint for a military leader (such as in the judges) but it does not refer to a Roman army general, such as an centurion, which would have had to have been Paul’s metaphor since he lived in a world controlled by the Romans, and Ephesus was part of the Roman world. So, yes, I agree with you.
You can argue about any detail I write for I know I am not always right and welcome any correcting comments.
Mark, any comments?
Susanna,
The only time in the LXX that kephale is used as a person as leader is for Jephthah, so I do think you are quite accurate that it does NOT mean leader. IMO this use for Jephthah reflects a fall back on a word for word translation from the Hebrew.
The times that kephale is used both in the LXX and in Greek literature for a small fighting unit is, in my opinion, proof that kephale never had the meaning in Greek of leader or general.
So, I am trying to reinforce what you are saying. I am sorry if I did not make this clear. I feel that the military use for a small mobile unit is PROOF that it cannot also mean leader.
Imagine the confusion if someone said in Greek “This is a task for the kephale,” and no one knew if that meant the general of the advance troops. It would be untenable.
So, once again, this is a detail to support your point of view. I feel that complementarians are grasping in their desire to be an authority over women.
However, oddly, this does not mean that many of them are not very nice folk and not above cleaning up and helping around the house. 🙂
Oops,
Should have been –
“Imagine the confusion if someone said in Greek “This is a task for the kephale,” and no one knew if that meant the general OR the advance troops. It would be untenable.”
No army could tolerate this kind of ambiguity, nor could they necessarily fall back on context as Mark and others so often assert.
Hi Sue,
I agree with you, but I found something else that was interesting.
I did a detailed study on rosh/kephale in the Septuagint and I found the following:
(the following is an excerpt from chapter 4)
If kephale truly had the universally accepted meaning “leader” or “authority over” in the second century B.C., we should find it regularly in the Septuagint.
The Hebrew word for ‘head’ is ro’sh and it is often translated with words such as “chief,” “prince” and “captain,” in addition to “head,” “beginning” and “to sum up.” Kephale is used to translate ro’sh when the context gives it the most common meaning, a literal head of a literal body. But when ro’sh has other meanings, such as “leader” and “chief,” the Septuagint overwhelmingly favors words such as archos (“leader”), arche (“beginning,” “ruler”) and hegeoumai (“leader”). We see this in archontes oikon patrioon (“head of their father’s house,” Josh. 22.14), archontos ethous (“head of the people,” Num. 25:15) and hegoumenoi toon thuloon (“heads of your tribes,” Deut. 5:23).
The Book of Numbers offers a crucial insight into the usage of archos, arche and kephale in the Septuagint: Archos is used to translate ro’sh when the text speaks of leaders, captains and chiefs (Num. 1.4; 1.16; 10.4; 13.3; 14.4; 25.15; 30.2; 32.28; 36.1). Kephale and arche are used when the text speaks of summing up (Num. 1:2; 4:2; 5:7; 31:26). Kephale and arche are found together also in Isa. 9:14-15: “Therefore the LORD will cut off head (kephale) and tail from Israel, Palm branch and bulrush in one day. The elder and honorable, he is the head (arche); the prophet who teaches lies, he is the tail.” Kephale is used to preserve the literal meaning of the text, but instead of denoting a leader it has the meaning “first” in the sense of a beginning – contrasted to a tail, which is the end – which is also the literal meaning of arche. That kephale describes the extreme of an object is seen in 2 Chronicles 5:9, Kephalai toon anathoreoon (“end of the poles”), yet another literal meaning of arche.
In Deuteronomy 28:13-14, being the “head” (ro’sh, kephale) refers to the blessings of prosperity and safety from war which follows obedience to God’s commandments, and to being the “head” over the enemy, who is the “tail.” The blessing is contrasted to the curses which follow disobedience. In Lamentations 1:5, Israel is described as being afflicted by the enemy which is her ro’sh (Septuagint, kephale). In Judges, kephale has a similar military connotation.
And the people and princes of Gilead said one to another, What man is he that will begin to fight against the children of Ammon? he shall be head [kephale] over all the inhabitants of Gilead. …And the elders of Gilead said unto Jephthah, Therefore we turn again to thee now, that thou mayest go with us, and fight against the children of Ammon, and be our head [kephale] over all the inhabitants of Gilead. And Jephthah said unto the elders of Gilead, If ye bring me home again to fight against the children of Ammon, and the LORD deliver them before me, shall I be your head [kephale]? And the elders of Gilead said unto Jephthah, The LORD be witness between us, if we do not so according to thy words. Then Jephthah went with the elders of Gilead, and the people made him head [kephale] and captain over them: and Jephthah uttered all his words before the LORD in Mizpeh. (Judg 10:18; 11:8-11 KJV)
The most important verse in determining the meaning of kephale in the Septuagint is 1 Chronicles 29.11: “Yours, O LORD, is the kingdom; you are exalted as head over all” (NIV). The Septuagint translates the text Basileus kai ethos (“king over nations”).
Kephale is never used of a husband, a head of a household, or God in the Septuagint. Instead it refers to a beginning, summing up and a military leader who is portrayed as a “head.” The head leads the group, followed by the tail, but the head can be changed at any time, which is not true of the literal head of a literal body, which is Paul’s metaphor in the New Testament.
(Here ends the excerpt)
The reason why comps claim kephale means “a leader” in the Septuagint is that it is used to refer to the judges who are said to be the head (rosh/kephale) over the whole city. But what they ignore is that the OT metaphor is that of head/tail, not head/body. Kephale paired with “tail” does not have the same meaning as kephale paired with “body,” and hence comps. must use Plato’s soul-body dichotomy to give kephale the meaning “ruler over a body,” as did Augustine. This is however not the biblical principle found in the NT.
And as far as the concept that we can rely on dictionaries is concerned I find it utterly preposterous. First of all the compilers of the dictionaries are as biased as everyone else and their choices reflect their own prejudices as well as the era they were created. Strong’s for instance is riddled with errors and is a good case study. Even in the otherwise excellent Perseus Online Dictionary hypotasso is given the meaning “obedience” when it cites Colossians 3, which is not the correct meaning. A good example of giving a word a wrong meaning is ekklesias which can refer either to an general assembly, a church, or the Athenian governing assembly which included only males over 21. Someone has suggested that Paul deliberately chose ekklesias to describe the church because it excluded women from the governing body. But such a notion is utterly ridiculous considering that the biblical ekklesias includes all Christians, not only males over 21. Tertullian did in fact make the church into a political body in imitation of the Roman senate, and he effectively excluded women from the laity. But although he managed to make the former ministries into legal offices, and thus exclude both women and slaves from leadership, women had to be incorporated back into the church somehow. It became the task of the synods to try to justify the exclusion of women from leadership while affirming their full participation in the church. An impossible task as is seen that they didn’t quite succeed.
Susanna,
I totally agree with you. What I want to do now is provide the circuitous Hebrew – Greek – English sequence for 1 Chronicles 29:11.
?????? ????????????, ???????????????? ????? ???????
Lord, the kingdom is yours
you are exalted above all.
??? ???????? ??? ?????????? ??? ???????? ??? ?????
Every king and nation quakes from before your face.
The fact is that the LXX is sometimes an overliteral translation, and sometimes not a translation at all but digresses from the Hebrew. Of course, if kephale meant leader then this passage would have used kephale in the Greek but it didn’t. You are quite right, but I am just trying to add the details.
You also correctly write,
“Kephale is never used of a husband, a head of a household, or God in the Septuagint.”
To my knowledge kephale is never used of a leader of his own people, tribe, family, house, etc. in the LXX or other Greek literature with one exception, Hermas.
This makes it truly disturbing that Grudem writes,
“In these texts the word kephal¯e is applied to many people in authority, but to none without governing authority:
* the king of Egypt is called “head” of the nation
* the general of an army is called the “head” of the army
* the Roman emperor is called the “head” of the people
* the god Zeus is called the “head” of all things
* David as king of Israel is called the “head” of the people
* the leaders of the tribes of Israel are called “heads” of the tribes
* the husband is the “head” of the wife
* Christ is the “head” of the church
* God the Father is the “head” of Christ”
Examples 1, 2, 3, 5, and 6 have been restructured from the original which go like this,
King of Egypt is called the head of of kings because he is the most illustrious in his family (he is not the founder of the family line, his father is.)
The general of the army is said to be LIKE the head of a body.
The Roman Empero rcould be the head of a vigourous body.
David was “head” to the Gentiles not his own people.
The leaders of the tribes are called the heads of poles or staffs which is a metaphor for a tribe.
My question is why did Grudem restructure all these citations to give the impression that kephale meant head of a family, tribe and nation.
Woops. I didn’t know that your blog is not set up for unicode. It needs to include somewhere in the settings that it allows UTF 8.
Anyway, the Greek says
“Basileus kai ethnos” which means “king and nation.”
The main point is that complementarians have to dig pretty deep and then rearrange everything in order to prove their point. I think egaliatarians just have to suggest that people use their common sense.
Common sense tells me that if men say that men are to have final say, I smell a fish.
To your last question, the answer is very simple: because he needs kephale to mean “authority” or “ruler” and he has no proof of it outside of Greek philosophy and Greek literature. If kephale does not mean “ruler” in the Bible, his entire argument for a creation based subjection of women is found to be false. This is not the only instance in which Grudem changes facts to accommodate his complementarian view. His interpretation of ezer (help) is another good example.
Cheryl,
Your source code says utf-8 so perhaps it is only the comments that can’t contain Greek or Hebrew. I don’t know.
Susanna,
Yes, he plays fast and loose all the time. There are two possible reasons why he gains so much approval. His team shouts louder, and simply brainwashes the crowds into believing this view OR men (and perhaps some women) WANT to believe that this view is true.
Perhaps though it is simply the wait of tradition. After all slavery lasted in Christian countries until not that long ago.
It used to seem so easy. I thought I could just make the facts public and people would see how the kephale, authentein and Junia studies had been rigged. But evidently not.
No, it isn’t easy because people have been listening to the debate for two decades now and most of the books and sermons have said the same thing: equality is unbiblical. I hope that my research will change some of it, make people willing to listen and consider the facts instead of the scare tactics. It really doesn’t matter how many times it is shown that Junia was an apostle, Phoebe a deacon and Deborah a judge; unless we destroy the dogma of a creation based female subjection, there is always going to be a new explanation why women cannot be in leadership despite all the evidence to the contrary.
Sue,
I have looked to fix the problem concerning why my blog won’t accept the Greek lettering, but so far we haven’t been able to find a fix. It is frustrating but not sure what to do at this point.
I enjoyed Submission Tyranny, in church and society’s parable of recent.
The parable of the Divinity’s: http://submissiontyranny.blogspot.com/2009/11/parable-of-divinitys.html and then her followup with the explanation of the parable: http://submissiontyranny.blogspot.com/2009/11/parable-of-divinitys-explained.html
Like in the parable, God does provide a way to escape. By insisting that wives live with rules that are contrary to God’s word, (elevating husbands to a place of authority and superiority which belongs to God alone), husbands force wives to live in idolatry. If a wife chooses to do a sinful act that her husband is demanding of her, that is obviously sin. But church leaders fail to recognize that wives who are forced to live as inferior to their husbands are also disobeying God. That disobedience is both idolatry (putting husbands and church leaders above God) and sin.
Thanks Hannah, that was a very good read and thought-provoking.
Susanna & Sue,
I hope that you will continue to publish the information you’ve found at every opportunity.
I have to hand it to the complementarians – they have done a masterful job of spreading only the information they say lines up with their position.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I have not read or heard a comp say that a woman preaching or teaching men is a sin. It amazes me that their followers don’t seem to notice that for all their supposed “slam dunk” posturing and “slippery slope” warnings, the act of women teaching or preaching to men is not straight out called ‘a sin.’
Cheryl and I have both asked Mark if he believes that it is a sin for women to teach or preach to men and he has not yet given us an answer even after 3 inquiries.
Thanks Kay,
I have been discussing on a Christian message board with a (male) complementarist and here is how his reasoning goes: he does not care what the early church said on the subject and he also rejects the modern interpretation of Gen 3.16 for he gets his information by reading “only the Bible.” In other words, he proved my hypothesis that without Gen 3.16 as God’s commandment complementarists do not have a case. He quotes the usual texts (1 Cor 14 and 1 Tim 2) as if no more explanation is needed. This is the only method he has since he rejects everything else (even Grudem’s theology!).
Sue does it right. She picks everything apart and questions everything. This is the only safe method to do theology.
Susanna,
I’ve had many people tell me that God just couldn’t have made the Bible so difficult to understand that we can’t simply trust what is says “right there in plain english.” They usually mean KJV english – as though IT has the ‘plain’ english we speak every day. >Huunh??<
Susanna, men like the one you describe probably really don’t know much about how to read the Bible in context. So many today think one can pull a sentence here and a piece of a sentence there, and piece them together to form their ideas. It’s actually a mystical and cultic approach, rather than true diligent Bible study.
But once some men get the concept in their thinking that as men they naturally hold authority, then they feel no need to have to listen to others, especially women.
TL,
You make a good point. Along with that, at least here in the U.S., we are also suffering from what I’d term ‘formula drivin’ church. Our Christian bookstores are full of ‘how to’ books for having the best Christian life possible – which really holds great appeal to those conditioned to strive for The American Dream. I see the comp’s ‘Role’ books, seminars and websites as fitting right in – as in, if all you men and women just line up in your proper god-given ‘role’ then God will bless you, because all the problems in your marriage and home are due to not being in your proper ‘role.’ Simply, get out your Bible promises book and pick and choose some. What ever happened to fasting and prayer and meditating on the Word? 🙁 sorry if that’s drifting from topic, but I think there is a connection.
Suzanna #106 – This is exactly the conclusion I have arrived at. I am preparing a series of blog posts tentatively titled “The Biblical Show Stoppers in the Gender/Authority Debate”. After going round and round AND ROUND on these issues, I have observed that it is the interpretation of a few biblical passages that drive everything.
Does Genesis 1 and 2 support equality or hierarchy in the original marriage design?
Is male “rule” in Genesis 3 a negative consequence or a positive remedy?
Are Paul’s head/body texts a metaphor or do they simply describe normal “living being” arrangements?
Is the second half of 1 Timothy 2 about women or a particular woman?
If you can’t get a complimentarian to change their understanding of these biblical passages, there is little sense in talking to them about anything else (especially kephale. That is why I am done talking to Mark here. His dogma about Genesis is thoroughly ingrained and it influences, even dictates, how he sees every other passage being discussed. Until he can shed the idea that male authority is present in Genesis, he will never be able to see gender equality anywhere else in scripture.
BTW Suzanna – I just bought your book. Can’t wait to dig into it.
“His dogma about Genesis is thoroughly ingrained and it influences, even dictates, how he sees every other passage being discussed. Until he can shed the idea that male authority is present in Genesis, he will never be able to see gender equality anywhere else in scripture.”
gengwall,
So true. That’s why on the previous thread I pointed out to him that comps never quote what Jesus had to say about authority (“All authority (exousia) has been given to Me”) and the meaning of exousia there is uncontested. But, Mark is still back there in Genesis with no clear statements telling us we are the ones with “blinkers” on.
Looking forward to your Show Stopper posts.
TL, you are absolutely right. Most modern evangelicals think that they have come to their conclusions on their own and therefore any questioning of their beliefs is perceived as a personal attack. Arrogance is never pretty, but when it takes the shape of ecclesiastical pettiness, it is downright harmful.
Kay, you are also absolutely right. Curiously, or I should say, inevitably, since the roles as too narrow, Piper and Grudem concede that “headship does not describe the exact activity” of the husband and wife – that is, as long as the husband has the authority and final say in all things. No wonder Christians feel disoriented and confused and everyone is doing their own theology, as I have witnessed the past few days in debating with a few comps.
Gengwall, bless your heart! I would love to give a free copy to everyone but I have to eat too… and I gave away books, no one would buy one and then I would never get to publish another since my first one was considered a failure.
Wonder what has happened to Mark? He has not yet commented on my posts, even though I have asked him to do so.
Hey, Mark! “When Dogmas Die” is already available in Australia via an online store. 🙂
(Sorry, the text should say: …and if I gave away books…)
“no one would buy one and then I would never get to publish another since my first one was considered a failure.”
LOL:)
Hopefully, Mark is just busy for a few days and/or prayerfully considering what has been put forth for him to consider here.
I also hope the fact that he has not been willing to state that women teaching/preaching to men in ‘formal’ church is a sin indicates that he is pondering: if not, why not.
This is one of my favorite contradictions that I found in “Recovering BIblical manhood and womanhood.” I sent it to CBMW but of course did not receive a reply (what a surprise…)
(Excerpt from Chapter 3)
Ortlund recognizes that his theology has an error – the clear contradiction between Genesis 1 and 2 – and he tries to correct it by resorting to a paradox, but it is a perilous path, as philosopher Manuel Velasquez points out, “Once a single contradiction is allowed, it is easy to prove with rigorous logic that any statement whatsoever is true. That is anything can be proven once you accept a contradiction.” Accordingly, Ortlund and Grudem give two entirely different and contradictory meanings to ‘ezer (“help”) which are both considered true.
Ortlund
It is the word “helper” that suggests the woman’s supportive role. Spencer argues, however, that this description of Eve “does not at all imply inherent subordination.” She adduces the fact that God Himself is portrayed in Scripture as our “Helper,” which He is. She then interprets this fact: “If being ‘one who helps’ inherently implies subordination, then, in that case, God would be subordinate to human!” This reasoning is not really Fallacious. The Fallacy lies in the implication of what she says, namely, that God cannot be subordinate to human beings. He does so whenever He undertakes to help us. He does not “un-God” Himself in helping us; but stoops down to our needs, according to His gracious and sovereign will. Similarly, I subordinate myself to my children when I help them with their homework. … So it is with God. When He helps His people, He retains His glorious deity but (amazingly!) steps into the servant role, under us, to lift us up. He is the God who emptied Himself and came down to our level – below us, to the level of slavery – to help us supremely at the Cross. Therefore, the fact that the Old Testament portrays God as our Helper proves only that the helper role is a glorious one, worthy even the Almighty. This Biblical fact does not prove that the concept of helper excludes subordination. Subordination is entailed in the very nature of a helping role.”
Grudem
It is true that God is often called our “helper,” but the word itself does not imply anything about rank or authority. The context must decide whether Eve is to “help” as a strong person who aids a weaker one, or as one who assists a loving leader. The context makes it very unlikely that helper should be read on the analogy of God’s help, because in Genesis 2:19-20 Adam is caused to seek his “helper” first among the animals. … Yet in passing through “helpful” animals to woman, God teaches us that the woman is a man’s “helper” in the sense of a loyal and suitable assistant in the life of the garden. The question seems to assume that because the word (like helper) has certain connotations (“Godlikeness”) in some places it must have them in every place.
What becomes clear from the above quotes is that the analogy of God and woman can be used if it proves that the woman is subordinate, but not if it makes the woman superior to the man. Not surprisingly, Ortlund and Grudem never propose that the word ‘ezer means that the woman is an equal, for it would destroy their concept of male headship. Instead they focus on refuting a scenario in which the woman is the stronger and the man the weaker, which they perhaps expected to create an instant negative response as seen in Ortlund’s response to Spencer’s comment on Genesis 2. Ortlund expresses indignation that she would even suggest that the “helper” could be superior to Adam. But however indignant Ortlund is, his own argument makes the woman superior, since he compares her to God who stoops down to help us and to a parent who comes down to the child’s level. If God subordinates Himself, He must be under human authority, for subordination signifies occupying a lower position in a hierarchy. Tertullian refuted such a belief in already the third century when he wrote, “[Y]our divinity is put in subjection to Christians; and you can surely never ascribe deity to that which is under the authority of man.” Thus God does in fact “un-God” Himself if He subordinates Himself to human beings.
(Here ends the excerpt)
Ortlund and Grudem also focus too much on the English conotation of “helper”. In the God=ezer passages, God is either portrayed as a fellow warrior, worker, etc., i.e. a peer, or even more significantly, a heroic savior, i.e. a superior practitioner of whatever action he is helping us in. God does not subordinate himself at all in the ezer passages.
Eve is no different. Part of her ezer role is as fellow manager of the garden and the earth. The other part of her ezer role is as savior for Adam’s “not good” state.
“I subordinate myself to my children when I help them with their homework”
This may be the most absurd statement ever in a long line of absurd statements from these people. I certainly do not subordinate myself to my child when helping with homework. Does my child have authority over me in that setting? Certainly not. Nor do they view me as their servant. They view me, and I am, mentor, friend, savior. There is nothing inferior, lowly, or subordinate about my contribution to their homework effort.
But I suppose if they want to go their, then that makes Eve parent to Adam. Certainly then, when she is not his ezer, she is his mommy and has all due authority over him!
Victory!
I finally got a comp to agree that kephale means “beginning” as a source of another. As a defense he wrote that it doesn’t matter what kephale means since 1 Tim 2 supersedes everything else. Of course it is a child’s play to refute such theology, and I hope it won’t take him too long to see the point. Every comp that “sees the light” is a victory for the truth.
For your benefit, here’s the list I compiled of kephale in early church writings. Use freely.
Ignatius, Apostolic Father (30-107) “Flee, therefore, those evil offshoots [of Satan], which produce death- bearing fruit, whereof if any one tastes, he instantly dies. For these men are not the planting of the Father. For if they were, they would appear as branches of the cross, and their fruit would be incorruptible. By it [Through the Cross], He calls you through His passion, as being His members. The head, therefore, cannot be born by itself, without its members; God, who is [the Saviour] Himself, having promised their union. (Ignatius to the Trallians, Chapter XI)
Irenaues (ca 180) “As the Head rose from the dead, so also the remaining part of the body – of everyman who is found in life… Remember, therefore, my beloved friend, that thou hast been redeemed by the flesh of our Lord, re-established by His blood; and “holding the Head, from which the whole body of the Church, having been fitted together, takes increase”—that is, acknowledging the advent in the flesh of the Son of God, and [His] divinity (deum), and looking forward with constancy to His human nature (hominem)” (Against Heresies, Book III, XIX; Book V, XIV.4)
Tertullian (145-200) When, therefore, he speaks of their “following the commandments and doctrines of men,” he refers to the conduct of those persons who “held not the Head,” even Him in whom all things are gathered together; for they are all recalled to Christ, and concentrated in Him as their initiating principle —even the meats and drinks which were indifferent in their nature. (Five Books Against Marcion, Book V, Ch XIX)
Clement of Alexandria (153-217) And it is the name of God that is expressed; since, as the Son sees the goodness of the Father, God the Saviour works, being called the first principle of all things, which was imaged forth from the invisible God first, and before the ages, and which fashioned all things which came into being after itself. Nay more, the oracle exhibits the prophecy which by the Word cries and preaches, and the judgment that is to come; since it is the same Word which prophesies, and judges, and discriminates all things. …. This discourse respecting God is most difficult to handle. For since the first principle of everything is difficult to find out, the absolutely first and oldest principle, which is the cause of all other things being and having been, is difficult to exhibit. For bow can that be expressed which is neither genus, nor difference, nor species, nor individual, nor number; nay more, is neither an event, nor that to which an event happens? No one can rightly express Him wholly. For on account of His greatness He is ranked as the All, and is the Father of the universe. Nor are any parts to be predicated of Him. For the One is indivisible; wherefore also it is infinite, not considered with reference to inscrutability, but with reference to its being without dimensions, and not having a limit. And therefore it is without form and name. And if we name it, we do not do so properly, terming it either the One, or the Good, or Mind, or Absolute Being, or Father, or God, or Creator or Lord. (Stromata, Book V, Ch VI, XII)
Origen (185-254) “Who is the head of all things, alone having as head God the Father, for it is written, “The head of Christ is God,” seeing clearly also that it is written, no one knows the Father, save the Son, nor does anyone know the Son, save the Father” (for who can know what wisdom is, save He who called it into being) who can investigate with certainty the universal nature of His Word, and of God Himself, which nature proceeds from God, except God alone, with whom the Word was.” (Origen de Principiis, Book II, ch IV.3, VI.1)
Cyprian (200-258) So that, while they feign things like the truth, they make void the truth by their subtlety. This happens, beloved brethren, so long as we do not return to the source of truth, as we do not seek the head nor keep the teaching of the heavenly Master … As there are many rays of the sun, but one light; and many branches of a tree, but one strength based in its tenacious root; and since from one spring flow many streams, although the multiplicity seems diffused in the liberality of an overflowing abundance, yet the unity is still preserved in the source. Separate a ray of the sun from its body of light, its unity does not allow a division of light; break a branch from a tree,—when broken, it will not be able to bud; cut off the stream from its fountain, and that which is cut off dries up. Thus also the Church, shone over with the light of the Lord, sheds forth her rays over the whole world, yet it is one light which is everywhere diffused, nor is the unity of the body separated. Her fruitful abundance spreads her branches over the whole world. She broadly expands her rivers, liberally flowing, yet her head is one, her source one; and she is one mother, plentiful in the results of fruitfulness: from he womb we are born, by her milk we are nourished, by her spirit we are animated. (Treatise I, On the Unity of the Church, 3, 4)
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Novatian (210-280) But now, whatever He is, He is not of Himself, because He is not unborn; but He is of the Father, because He is begotten, whether as being the Word, whether as being the Power, or as being the Wisdom, or as being the Light, or as being the Son; and whatever of these He is, in that He is not from any other source, as we have already said before, than from the Father, owing His origin to His Father, He could not make a disagreement in the divinity by the number of two Gods, since He gathered His beginning by being born of Him who is one God. In which kind, being both as well only-begotten as first-begotten of Him who has no beginning, He is the only one, of all things both Source and Head. And therefore He declared that God is one, in that He proved Him to be from no source nor beginning, but rather the beginning and source of all things (A treatise of Novatian Concerning the Trinity, Ch XXXI)
Arnobius (297-303) But let this monstrous and impious fancy be put far from us, that Almighty God, the creator and framer, the author of things great and invisible, should be believed to have begotten souls so fickle, with no seriousness, firmness, and steadiness, prone to vice, inclining to all kinds of sins …then that, forgetting that they have one origin, one father and head, they should shake to their foundations and violate the rights of kinship. (Arnobius, Adversus Gentes, Book II, 45)
Athanasius (298-373) For neither is safe to say that the Son is from nothing, (since this is no where spoken of Him in divinely inspired Scripture,) nor again of any other subsistence before existing beside the Father, but from God alone do we define Him genuinely to be generated. For the divine Word teaches that the Ingenerate and Unbegun, the Father of Christ, is One.
Nor may we, adopting the hazardous position, ‘There was once when He was not,’ from unscriptural sources, imagine any interval of time before Him, but only the God who has generated Him apart from time; for through Him both times and ages came to be. Yet we must not consider the Son to be co-unbegun and co-ingenerate with the Father; for no one can be properly called Father or Son of one who is co-unbegun and co-ingenerate with Him. But we acknowledge that the Father who alone is Unbegun and Ingenerate, hath generated inconceivably and incomprehensibly to all: and that the Son hath been generated before ages, and in no wise to be ingenerate Himself like the Father, but to have the Father who generated Him as His beginning; for ‘the Head of Christ is God.’ (1 Cor. xi. 3.) (Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia, Part II, History of Arian opinions, Council of Sirmium)
Basil, Doctor of the Church (329-379) “If, say they, the Saviour is a vine, and we are branches … He called US branches not of His Godhead, but of His flesh, as the Apostle says, we are ’the body of Christ, and members in particular, and again, know ye not that your bodies are the members of Christ ?’ If the head of the ’man is Christ, and the head of Christ is God, and man is not of one substance with Christ, Who is God (for man is not God), but Christ is of one substance with God (for He is God) therefore God is not the head of Christ in the same sense as Christ is the head of man. The natures of the creature and the creative Godhead do not exactly coincide. God is head of Christ as Father; Christ is head of us, as Maker. (Prolegomena Sketch of the Life and Works of Saint Basil, II. Works On John XV. I. “I Am the Vine.”)
Gregory of Nazianzen , Doctor of the Church (329-389) “God begetteth not a false god, as we have said, nor did He deliberate and afterwards beget; but He begat eternally, and much more swiftly than our words or thoughts: for we speaking in time, consume time; but in the case of the Divine Power, the generation is timeless. And as I have often said, He did not bring forth the Son from non existence into being, nor take the non-existent into sonship: but the Father, being Eternal, eternally and ineffably begat One Only Son, who has no brother. Nor are there two first principles; but the Father is the head of the Son; the beginning is One. For the Father begot the Son VERY GOD, called Emmanuel; and Emmanuel being interpreted is, God with us (Lecture XI.14)
Ambrose, Doctor of the church (340-397) “It is written, say they, that “the head of every man is Christ, and the head of woman is man, and the head of Christ is God.” Let them, if they please, tell me what they mean by this objection—whether to join together, or to dissociate, these four terms. Suppose they mean to join them, and say that God is the Head of Christ in the same sense and manner as man is the head of woman. Mark what a conclusion they Fall into. For if this comparison proceeds on the supposed equality of the terms of it, and these four—woman, man, Christ, and God—are viewed together as in virtue of a likeness resulting from their being of one and the same nature, then woman and God will begin to come under one definition. But if this conclusion be not satisfactory, by reason of its impiety, let them divide, on what principle they will. Thus, if they will have it that Christ stands to God the Father in the same relation as woman to man, then surely they pronounce Christ and God to be of one substance, inasmuch as woman and man are of one nature in respect of the flesh, for their difference is in respect of sex. But, seeing that there is no difference of sex between Christ and His Father, they will acknowledge then that which is one, and common to the Son and the Father, in respect of nature, whereas they will deny the difference lying in sex. Does this conclusion content them? Or will they have woman, man, and Christ to be of one substance, and distinguish the Father from them? Will this, then, serve their turn? Suppose that it will, then observe what they are brought to. They must either confess themselves not merely Arians, but very Photinians, because they acknowledge only the Manhood of Christ, Whom they judge fit only to be placed on the same scale with human beings. Or else they must, however contrary to their leanings, subscribe to our belief, by which we dutifully and in godly fashion maintain that which they have come at by an impious course of thought, that Christ is indeed, after His divine generation, the power of God, whilst after His putting on of the flesh, He is of one substance with all men in regard of His flesh, excepting indeed the proper glory of His Incarnation, because He took upon Himself the reality, not a phantom likeness, of flesh. Let God, then, be the Head of Christ, with regard to the conditions of Manhood. Observe that the Scripture says not that the Father is the Head of Christ; but that God is the Head of Christ, because the Godhead, as the creating power, is the Head of the being created. And well said [the Apostle] “the Head of Christ is God;” to bring before our thoughts both the Godhead of Christ and His flesh, implying, that is to say, the Incarnation in the mention of the name of Christ, and, in that of the name of God, oneness of Godhead and grandeur of sovereignty. But the saying, that in respect of the Incarnation God is the Head of Christ, leads on to the principle that Christ, as Incarnate, is the Head of man, as the Apostle has clearly expressed in another passage, where he says: “Since man is the head of woman, even as Christ is the Head of the Church;” whilst in the words following he has added: “Who gave Himself for her.” After His Incarnation, then, is Christ the head of man, for His self- surrender issued from His Incarnation. The Head of Christ, then, is God, in so far as His form of a servant, that is, of man, not of God, is considered, But it is nothing against the Son of God, if, in accordance with the reality of His flesh, He is like unto men, whilst in regard of His Godhead He is one with the Father, for by this account of Him we do not take aught from His sovereignty, but attribute compassion to Him. But who can with a good conscience deny the one Godhead of the Father and the Son, when our Lord, to complete His teaching for His disciples, said: “That they may be one, even as we also are one.” The record stands for witness to the Faith, though Arians turn it aside to suit their heresy; for, inasmuch as they cannot deny the Unity so often spoken of, they endeavour to diminish it, in order that the Unity of Godhead subsisting between the Father and the Son may seem to be such as is unity of devotion and faith amongst men, though even amongst men themselves community of nature makes unity thereof. (Exposition of the Christian Faith, Book IV, Chapter III, 28- 34)
Rufinus (344-408) “For He is born One of One, because there is one brightness of light, and there is one word of the understanding. Neither does an incorporeal generation degenerate into the plural number, or suffer division, where He Who is born is in no wise separated from Him Who begets. He is “only” (unique), as thought is to the mind, as wisdom is to the wise, as a word is to the understanding, as valour is to the brave. For as the Father is said by the Apostle to be “alone wise,” so likewise the Son alone is called wisdom. He is then the “only Son.” And, although in glory, everlastingness, virtue, dominion, power, He is what the Father is, yet all these He hath not unoriginately as the Father, but from the Father, as the Son, without beginning and equal; and although He is the Head of all things, yet the Father is the Head of Him. For so it is written, “The Head of Christ is God.” (Rufinus, A Commentary on the Apostles’ Creed, 6)
Councils of Ariminum and Seleucia (359) The Creed according to the Council of the East. “If any man says that the Son is incapable of birth and without beginning, saying as though there were two incapable of birth and unborn and without beginning, and makes two Gods: let him be anathema. For the Head, which is the beginning of all things, is the Son; but the Head or beginning of Christ is God: for so to One who is without beginning and is the beginning of all things, we refer the whole world through Christ. To declare the Son to be incapable of birth is the height of impiety. God would no longer be One: for the nature of the one Unborn God demands that we should confess that God is one. Since therefore God is one, there cannot be two incapable of birth: because God is one (although both the Father is God and the Son of God is God) for the very reason that incapability of birth is the only quality that can belong to one Person only. The Son is God for the very reason that He derives His birth from that essence which cannot be born. Therefore our holy faith rejects the idea that the Son is incapable of birth in order to predicate one God incapable of birth and consequently one God, and in order to embrace the Only-begotten nature, begotten from the unborn essence, in the one name of the Unborn God. For the Head of all things is the Son: but the Head of the Son is God. And to one God through this stepping-stone and by this confession all things are referred, since the whole world takes its beginning from Him to whom God Himself is the beginning” (Council convened at 359, On the councils, or the faith of the Easterns, XXVI, 59-60)
Hilary of Potiers, Doctor of the Church (died 367) “But concerning the dispensation by which He assumed our body, he adds, and He is the head of the body, the Church: Who is the beginning, the first-born from the dead: that in all things He might have the pre-eminence. For it was the good pleasure of the Father that in Him should all the fullness dwell, and that through Him all things should be reconciled to Him. The Apostle has assigned to the spiritual mysteries their material effects. For He Who is the image of the invisible God is Himself the head of His body, the Church, and He Who is the first-born of every creature is at the same time the beginning, the first born from the dead: that in all things He might have the pre-eminence, being for us the Body, while He is also the image of God, since He, Who is the first-born of created things, is at the same time the first-born for eternity; so that as to Him things spiritual, being created in the First-born, owe it that they abide, even so all things human also owe it to Him that in the First-born from the dead they are born again into eternity. For He is Himself the beginning, Who as Son is therefore the image, and because the image, is of God. Further He is the first-born of every created thing, possessing in Himself the origin of the universe: and again He is the head of His body, the Church, and the first-born from the dead, so that in all things He has the pre-eminence. And because all things consist for Him, in Him the fullness of the Godhead is pleased to dwell, for in Him all things are reconciled through Him to Him, through Whom all things were created in Himself. (On the Trinity, Book VIII, 50)
Chrysostom, Doctor of the Church (347-407) “But the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is God.” Here the heretics rush upon us with a certain declaration of inferiority, which out of these words they contrive against the Son. But they stumble against themselves. For if “the man be the head of the woman,” and the head be of the same substance with the body, and “the head of Christ is God,” the Son is of the same substance with the Father. “Nay,” say they, “it is not His being of another substance which we intend to show from hence, but that He is under subjection.” What then are we to say to this? In the first place, when any thing lowly is said of him conjoined as He is with the Flesh, there is no disparagement of the Godhead in what is said, the Economy admitting the expression. However, tell me how thou intendest to prove this from the passage? “Why, as the man governs the wife, saith he, “so also the Father, Christ.” Therefore also as Christ governs the man, so likewise the Father, the Son. “For the head of every man,” we read, “is Christ.” And who could ever admit this? For if the superiority of the Son compared with us, be the measure of the Fathers’ compared with the Son, consider to what meanness thou wilt bring Him. So that we must not try all things by like measure in respect of ourselves and of God, though the language used concerning them be similar; but we must assign to God a certain appropriate excellency, and so great as belongs to God. For should they not grant this, many absurdities will follow. As thus; “the head of Christ is God:” and, “Christ is the head of the man, and he of the woman.” Therefore if we choose to take the term, “head,” in the like sense in all the clauses, the Son will be as far removed from the Father as we are from Him. Nay, and the woman will be as far removed from us as we are from the Word of God. And what the Son is to the Father, this both we are to the Son and the woman again to the man. And who will endure this? But dost thou understand the term “head” differently in the case of the man and the woman, from what thou dost in the case of Christ? Therefore in the case of the Father and the Son, must we understand it differently also. “How understand it differently?” saith the objector. According to the occasion . For had Paul meant to speak of rule and subjection, as thou sayest, he would not have brought forwardthe instance of a wife, but rather of a slave and a master. For what if the wife be under subjection to us? it is as a wife, as free, as equal in honor. And the Son also, though He did become obedient to the Father, it was as the Son of God, it was as God. For as the obedience of the Son to the Father is greater than we find in men towards the authors of their being, so also His liberty is greater. Since it will not of course be said that the circumstances of the Son’s relation to the Father are greater and more intimate than among men, and of the Father’s to the Son, less. For if we admire the Son that He was obedient so as to come even unto death, and the death of the cross, and reckon this the great wonder concerning Him; we ought to admire the Father also, that He begat such a son, not as a slave under command, but as free, yielding obedience and giving counsel. For the counsellor is no slave. But again, when thou hearest of a counsellor, do not understand it as though the Father were in need, but that the Son hath the same honor with Him that begat Him. Do not therefore strain the example of the man and the woman to all particulars. (Homilies on First Corinthians, Homily XXIV)
Augustine, Doctor of the Church (354-430)
1. Mutually Connected Objects: “And with respect to the circumstance that, in that enumeration of mutually connected objects which is given when it is said, “All things are yours, and ye are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s,” as also, “The head of the woman is the man, the Head of the man is Christ, and the Head of Christ is God,” there is no mention of the Holy Spirit; this they affirm to be but an application of the principle that, in general, the connection itself is not wont to be enumerated among the things which are connected with each other. Whence, also, those who read with closer attention appear to recognize the express Trinity likewise in that passage in which it is said, “For of Him, and through Him, and in Him, are all things.” “Of Him,” as if it meant, of that One who owes it to no one that He is: “through Him,” as if the idea were, through a Mediator; “in Him,” as if it were, in that One who holds together, that is, unites by connecting. (A Treatise on faith and the creed, 19)
2. Unity: “For one man He hath taken to Him, because unity He hath taken to Him. … But they that abide in the bond of Christ and are the members of Him, make in a manner one man, of whom saith the Apostle, “Until we all arrive at the acknowledging of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ.” Therefore one man is taken to Him, to which the Head is Christ; because “the Head of the man is Christ.” (Commentary on Psalm LXV)
“Nor is it strange that though distant we are near, though unknown we are well known to each other; for we are members of one body, having one Head, enjoying the effusion of the same grace, living by the same bread, walking in the same way, and dwelling in the same home. In short, in all that makes up our being,—in the whole faith and hope by which we stand in the present life, or labour for that which is to come,—we are both in the spirit and in the body of Christ so united, that if we fell from this union we would cease to be. (Letters of Saint Augustine Letter XXX, 2)
3. Startingpoint: If, then, the baptizer is not his origin and root and head, who is it from whom he receives faith? Where is the origin from which he springs? Where is the root of which he is a shoot? Where the head which is his starting-point? Can it be, that when he who is baptized is unaware of the faithlessness of his baptizer, it is then Christ who gives faith, it is then Christ who is the origin and root and head? Alas for human rashness and conceit! Why do you not allow that it is always Christ who gives faith, for the purpose of making a man a Christian by giving it? Why do you not allow that Christ is always the origin of the Christian, that the Christian always plants his root in Christ, that Christ is the head of the Christian? …But unless we admit this, either the Apostle Paul was the head and origin of those whom he had planted, or Apollos the root of those whom he had watered, rather than He who had given them faith in believing; whereas the same Paul says, “I have planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase: so then neither is he that planteth anything, nor he that watereth, but God that giveth the increase.” Nor was the apostle himself their root, but rather He who says, “I am the vine, ye are the branches.” How, too, could he be their head, when he says, that “we, being many, are one body in Christ,” and expressly declares in many passages that Christ Himself is the head of the whole body? (Augustine, In answer to the letters of Petilian, the Donatist, Bishop of Certa, Book I, Chapter 4.5)
4. Beginning: “Begetter, the latter the Begotten; the former not of the Son, the latter of the Father: the former the Beginning of the latter, whence also He is called the Head of Christ, although Christ likewise is the Beginning, but not of the Father; the latter, moreover, the Image of the former, although in no respect dissimilar, and although absolutely and without difference equal (omnino et indifferenter aequalis) (A Treatise on faith and the creed, Chapter 9.18.)
5. Incarnation: ”But as “the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us,” the same Wisdom which was begotten of God condescended also to be created among men. There is a reference to this in the word, “The Lord created me in the beginning of His ways.” For the beginning of His ways is the Head of the Church, which is Christ endued with human nature (homine indutus), by whom it was purposed that there should be given to us a pattern of living, that is, a sure way by which we might reach God. (A Treatise on faith and the creed, Chapter 4.6)
6. Servant: According to the form of God, it is said “Before all the hills He begat me,” that is, before all the loftinesses of things created and, “Before the dawn I begat Thee,” that is, before all times and temporal things: but according to the form of a servant, it is said, “The Lord created me in the beginning of His ways.” Because, according to the form of God, He said, “I am the truth;” and according to the form of a servant, “I am the way.” For, because He Himself, being the first-begotten of the dead, made a passage to the kingdom of God to life eternal for His Church, to which He is so the Head as to make the body also immortal, therefore He was “created in the beginning of the ways” of God in His work. For, according to the form of God, He is the beginning, that also speaketh unto us, in which “beginning” God created the heaven and the earth; but according to the form of a servant, “He is a bridegroom coming out of His chamber. ”According to the form of God, “He is the first-born of every creature, and He is before all things and by him all things consist;” according to the form of a servant, “He is the head of the body, the Church.” According to the form of God, “He is the Lord of glory.”(On the Trinity, Book I, Chapter 12)
7. One Man: “Christ is speaking: whether Head speak or whether Body speak; He is speaking that hath said, “Why persecutest thou Me?” He is speaking that hath said, “Inasmuch as ye have done it to one of the least of Mine, to Me ye have done it.” The voice then of this Man is known to be of the whole man, of Head and of Body: that need not often be mentioned, because it is known. (St. Augustine on the Psalms, Psalm LXX) “…But since there were to be His members, that is, His faithful ones, who would not have that power which He, our God, had; by His being hid, by His concealing Himself as if He would not be put to death, He indicated that His members would do this, in which members He Himself in fact was. For Christ is not simply in the head and not in the body, but Christ whole is in the head and body. What, therefore, His members are, that He is; but what He is, it does not necessarily follow that His members are. For if His members were not Himself, He would not have said, “Saul, why persecutest thou me?” For Saul was not persecuting Himself on earth, but His members, namely, His believers. He would not, however, say, my saints, my servants, or, in short, my brethren, which is more honorable; but, me, that is, my members, whose head I am.” (25. (h1) Tractate XXVII, John VII. 1–13.)
8. Universal Body: “…. or this same Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, the Word of the Father, equal and co-eternal with the Father, by whom all things were made, was Himself also made man for our sakes, in order that of the whole Church, as of His whole body, He might be the Head. … so all the saints who lived upon the earth previous to the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ, although they were born antecedently, were nevertheless united under the Head with that universal body of which He is the Head. (On the catechizing of the uninstructed, Chapter 19)
9. Mediator: ”That they are made alive in Christ, because they belong to the body of Christ? that they belong to the body of Christ, because Christ is the head even to them? and that Christ is the head even to them, because there is but one Mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus? But this He could not have been to them, unless through His grace they had believed in His resurrection. (A treatise on the grace of Christ and the original sin, in two books, Book II, On Original sin, Ch 31)
12. One Flesh: ”…Our Lord Jesus Christ speaketh in the Prophets, sometimes in His own Name, sometimes in ours, because He maketh Himself one with us; as it is said, “they twain shall be one flesh.” Wherefore also the Lord saith in the Gospel, speaking of marriage, “therefore they are no more twain, but one flesh.” One flesh, because of our mortality He took flesh; not one divinity, for He is the Creator, we the creature. Whatsoever then our Lord speaks in the person of the Flesh He took upon Him, belongs both to that Head which hath already ascended into heaven, and to those members which still toil in their earthly wandering. (Psalm CXXXIX)
13. Cornerstone: “We recognize the corner stone: the corner stone is Christ. There cannot be a corner, unless it hath united in itself two walls: they come from different sides to one corner, but they are not opposed to each other in the corn corner. The circumcision cometh from one side the uncircumcision from the other; in Christ both peoples have met together: because He hath become the stone, of which it is written, “The stone which the builders rejected, hath become the head of the corner.” (Psalm XCV.6)
Socrates Scholasticus (born 379) “But we know that the Father alone being inoriginate and incomprehensible, has ineffably and incomprehensibly to all begotten, and that the Son was begotten before the ages, but is not unbegotten like the Father, but has a beginning, viz. the Father who begat him, for “the head of Christ is God.” (The Ecclesiastical History Book II, Chapter XIX)
Leo the Great, Doctor of the Church (Ca. 390- 461) “There is no doubt therefore, dearly-beloved, that man’s nature has been received by the Son of God into such a union that not only in that Man Who is the first-begotten of all creatures, but also in all His saints there is one and the self-same Christ, and as the Head cannot be separated from the members, so the members cannot be separated from the Head. For although it is not in this life, but in eternity that GOD is to be “all in all ,” yet even now He is the inseparable Inhabitant of His temple, which is the Church, according as He Himself promised, saying, “Lo! I am with you all the days till the end of the age.” (Leo the Great, pope of Rome, 440, Sermon LXIII, ch III)
Susanna,
Excellent set of quotes! Thanks for posting them here.
gengwall, #23
Thanks for making that comment ;P
“They came to him and said, “Teacher, we know you are a man of integrity. You aren’t swayed by men, because you pay no attention to who they are; but you teach the way of God in accordance with the truth.” Mark 12:14
Get busy and turn my head for one moment, and everyone adds some great comments!
Sadly, I am now thinking we may have lost Mark though…but, I don’t think he ended up here by accident.
Thank you pinklight. I would very much like to take your post verbatum and quote it in my upcoming blog post on Paul’s head/body metaphors, if that’s ok.
As I see more and more entries about lexicons, dictionaries, the LXX, and so on, it seems more and more clear that kephale was not EVER used for human relationships like rosh was and like our “head” is. Bauer’s entry not withstanding, it appears that in Greek, other words are used when one wants to designate that a person has authority over another or others. In other words, Bauer’s figurative usage is a complete fabrication. This is just starting to sink in. I mean, I knew that Bauer’s definition was not how Paul was using kephale, but it is just now dawning on me that no Greek speaker would use kephale in the way Bauer claims is a common figurative usage for Greek speakers. That elevates the effort to promote an authoritarian definition for kephale to almost conspiratorial levels.
gengwall,
Maybe Bauer simply missed this quote of Irenaues:
“holding the Head, from which the whole body of the Church, having been fitted together, takes increase” (thanks Susanna!)
…part of me recoils at the term “conspiratorial” but after a while we see the choice between sloppy scholarship or on purpose.
“after a while we see the choice between sloppy scholarship or on purpose”
I guess that is my point. If one of the worlds leading lexicographers (or one of his English translators) puts forward a usage for a Greek word that would never be employed by a Greek speaker, it doesn’t pass the sniff test. He simply can’t have made that ignorant of a mistake, so I must assume an agenda.
So how can complimentarians argue that there is a context where “head” in Greek means authority over when no such context exists, and at the same time argue that “head” in Greek never means source when there is documented evidence that that was an actual usage? I mean, Grudem wrote a big huge paper on both usages with “proof”. I wonder if they also have a bridge to sell me?
#128 Kay,
I agree. I think we have lost Mark. But it is understandable. I think he thought that egalitarians did not have a solid argument and his argument would easily trump the opposition. That didn’t happen and I think he may have been overwhelmed by the evidence that has come out that he simply cannot answer.
What does one do when one cannot answer the arguments? There are several options. One can run away and cry without doing anything about it, one can be angry and pout, one can ignore everything that has been said and pretend the debate never happened, one can turn the argument into an ad hominem (attack on the man) or one can turn away from what has been proven as false and turn towards the truth. Those who are lovers of truth would logically resort to the latter option.
All we can say is that we have planted the seed. The Lord must see to it that the seed is watered and God will give the increase so that He gets the glory.
“…and God will give the increase so that He gets the glory.”
Amen
Mark has exams until probably early/mid next week…so he might yet be back!
I personally was admiring his staying power (like a dog with a bone…any graphics available Cheryl?) and would have put money on him coming back…if I was a gambling man!
Dave,
I too was admiring his staying power and good to know that he may still be coming back. I wouldn’t want him to retreat with his dog bone and just leave us.
How’s this for a word picture?
I never suspected he was gone…just reloading.
Ah, reloading….yes another great word picture!
You made me laugh gengwall!
I love the word picture Cheryl! My only criticism is that you have portrayed Mark as having many bones (to pick?). I am not sure if he has a bucket load in his arsenal!
Are any of them head bones?
I should go and do some work…
Dave,
No “kephale” (head) bones at all in that bucket, but I didn’t want to be unfair to Mark so he got four juicy ones (of the leg variety). Just enough for a few more go-arounds!
My adversary bowed out of the discussion since he could not prove that the church has always taught a creation-based hierarchy. After conceding that kephale means “beginning” he still claimed that Gen 2 teaches female subordination and he based his entire claim on 1 Tim 2. When I pointed out the flaw in his thinking (i.e. if kephale does not mean “authority” in 1 Cor, Gen 2 cannot teach the man’s authority and 1 Tim 2 is conspicuously out of harmony with the rest of the Bible) he removed himself from the debate.
Ok, so what does 1 Tim 2 say. One night as I couldn’t sleep (due to insomnia) I thought about Paul’s choice of the word “epitrepo” (permit). Why would he choose the word over “paraggello” (command)? And suddenly it hit me: where is the commandment? “Epitrepo” is always used of with a commandment, either permitting an activity according to a commandment or denying permission due to a commandment. Thus Moses is said to have permitted divorce but Jesus said, in that the permission went against the purpose of marriage, which was to create a one flesh union of the two and “what God has joined, let no man put asunder.” In 1 Cor 14.34-5 we find that women are not permitted to speak for they ought to be in submission because the law says so. (I agree with those who say 1 Cor 14.34-5 is an interpolation, a later addition and I use it here only to show that “epitrepo” needs a commandment, or a foundational truth based on creation, for it cannot stand alone). So, where is the commandment that women ought not to dominate or teach men? Comps try to find it in Gen 2 and make the inference that
1. Because Adam was created first, he has authority over the woman.
2. Adam taught Eve and Eve received all her knowledge from Adam.
3. Eve “ruined” Adam when she took the fruit and did not ask her husband for permission.
4. Eve desires to rule over Adam as a consequence of sin.
But is this what the creation account says? No it is not.
1. Adam was created first to prevent the woman to be the source of all life since women give birth to children.
2. Eve told the Serpent, “God has said, ‘You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.’ (Gen 3.3) She did not say, “Adam told me, “We should not eat it…” God speaks directly to Eve after the Fall, which makes it clear that He had done so before. God does not only summon Eve, for He calls for “the human,” or “humankind” which included both the man and the woman.
3. Adam was present throughout the entire event, took the fruit from Eve and was therefore equally culpable. They both sinned and would experience the consequence of their sin.
4. The man rules over the woman as a consequence of sin.
Thus we find that the entire Creation and Fall accounts must be changed to accommodate the complementarist model and hence they do not have the creation-based principle they need for “epitrepo” to deny an activity which is against a commandment. Instead we find that a woman was dominating men and teaching heresy in Ephesus. Note that the text can also be read, “I do not permit a woman to teach (in general) or to dominate men.” There is no commandment that forbids women from general teaching in Israel or the church. Nor is there a commandment that men must have authority over women, although there has been an attempt to make Eph 5 say as much. These are all based on inferences because of the complementarist’s need to find them in the Bible to support their theology.
Let me see if I followed you correctly all the way to the end Suzanna. There must be a commandment with epitrepo and there is, just not the fictional commandment complimentarians present. The commandment, in keeping with the general theme of 1 Tim 1 and 2, is to not engage in false teaching, with a secondary commandment to not “lord it over” anyone. Did I get it right?
“There is no commandment that forbids women from general teaching in Israel or the church. Nor is there a commandment that men must have authority over women, although there has been an attempt to make Eph 5 say as much.”
Hi Suzanna. I am trying to follow your thoughts. I am from Australia and therefore a bit slower than normal! As there are no commands regarding women not teaching, 1 Tim 2 must be referring to some other relationship command…such as a command to submit to each other? i.e. Eph 5:21? Or even “love one another”? If it was suggesting a man can have authority over a woman (because a woman is not permitted to have authority over a man), then there must be a command stating this somewhere. Correct?
You beat me gengwall…what it would be to one of the sharper tools in the shed…
I can’t even talk proper…”what it would be to BE one of the sharper tools in the shed…”
So what Suzanna is saying, if we have understood it correctly, reminds me of CHeryl asking Mike Seaver for a second witness to the “law” that women cannot teach men. Interesting!
Susanna,
I have a little different take on some of your points.
While I agree that Adam being created first equalizes things so that the woman wouldn’t be the source of all things. However I do think that there is a higher purpose because of the sin issue. Because of sin there needs to be a line back to Adam without the issue of sin. Jesus then is a descendant of Adam’s through Eve but without the stain of Adam’s sin. I have used graphics here http://strivetoenter.com/wim/2006/11/20/adam-as-head-of-the-family/ to draw out the idea of the necessity of Adam being the source of Eve before sin entered the world.
Excellent! My only difference is that I believe that “human” refers to them both, but “the human” refers to one particular human. I believe that only Adam was kicked out of the garden and only one human (Adam) was charged with bringing sin into the world. (Romans 5:12)
I believe that Adam did sin but his sin was different than Eve’s as he sinned with his eyes wide open. Hosea 6:7 shows that God sees Adam’s sin as treacherous. Eve’s sin was the fall through deception. She still sinned but her motive was not the same as Adam’s.
Right! I think it would be good to add that God did not pronounce this “consequence” as a necessity or a command. God prophesied what the woman’s life would be like in this sin filled world. Not a pretty picture at all.
You guys think much deeper than I. I never saw any significance in Adam being created first. I always figured “it is what it is” and nothing more. Lots of eye opening today. WhooHoo!
Lastly, Susanna, I love what you are saying. However I believe that we can take see 1 Cor. 14:34-35 as a quote from the Corinthian’s letter to Paul rather than an interpolation. The reason is because verse 36 shows a rebuttal of a previous view. If verses 34 & 35 are missing what would Paul be refuting?
Connecting together the commands and showing what really is forbidden is important. It provides for the Word of God to be clear and understandable with a second witness. God never gives commands not to do something without making sure that the commands are clear since sin is a very serious issue with God. It certainly is never clear that God is forbidding all godly Christian women from teaching correct Biblical doctrine to men in all times, in all places and for all reasons as CBMW has written in their book.
Dave, i hope you put lots of money on me….because you were right.
I am in the middle of exams (and house moving preperation), so things are a bit hectic ATM. I haven’t read everything yet here or on my other post so i wont comment regarding them yet.
I am sad to think that people would think i would just leave and chase after my own bone. We may disagree but i would at least tell you if i was no longer going to dialoguw with you all.
Speak soon 8)
Note Mark that it was the guys who believed in you. Three cheers for male bonding! I must now go duck and cover from the inevitable grenades that will be launched my way.
“I am sad to think that people would think i would just leave and chase after my own bone.”
It’s really no reflection on you Mark. It is what others have done. That’s all. Time will show forth your good nature. 🙂
gengwall,
Bonding, schmonding – chances were at some time a comp would finally stick with us past the usual point of exit. 😉
I’m man enough…uhh err uhh…”person” enough to say, I’m glad Mark is the one in a million.
(so there- only a small grenade. LOL)
“You guys think much deeper than I. I never saw any significance in Adam being created first. I always figured “it is what it is” and nothing more. “
Well, that is a whole lot better than assigning preferential meanings to it as so many other men have tried to do. Personally, I always figured there had to be some reason, I just didn’t know for certain what it was. But because God is good, then it had to be beneficial to all. 🙂
“But because God is good, then it had to be beneficial to all. :)”
The Best Benefit, Amen!
Ok, let’s look at 1 Cor 14.34-5. I don’t really mind the quote hypothesis for at least it recognizes that the verse is not a mandate, but personally I think there is more evidence for an interpolation. The entire chapter 14 is about two things: prophecy and speaking in tongues and the purpose is to set guidelines as to their use in the church. In the below excerpt I have removed the two verses which restores the flow of the text and removes the repetition “in the churches.”
1 Cor 14:26-40
26 How is it then, brethren? Whenever you come together, each of you has a psalm, has a teaching, has a tongue, has a revelation, has an interpretation. Let all things be done for edification. 27 If anyone speaks in a tongue, let there be two or at the most three, each in turn, and let one interpret. 28 But if there is no interpreter, let him keep silent in church, and let him speak to himself and to God. 29 Let two or three prophets speak, and let the others judge. 30 But if anything is revealed to another who sits by, let the first keep silent. 31 For you can all prophesy one by one, that all may learn and all may be encouraged. 32 And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets. 33 For God is not the author of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints. 36 Or did the word of God come originally from you? Or was it you only that it reached? 37 If anyone thinks himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things which I write to you are the commandments of the Lord. 38 But if anyone is ignorant, let him be ignorant. 39 Therefore, brethren, desire earnestly to prophesy, and do not forbid to speak with tongues. 40 Let all things be done decently and in order.
Now “as in all the churches of the saints” is linked to “did the word come originally from you.” In other words, do you know something that other churches do not know wherefore your practice is different from theirs. The same idea is found in chapter 11,
“But if a woman has long hair, it is a glory to her; for her hair is given to her for a covering. 16 But if anyone seems to be contentious, we have no such custom, nor do the churches of God.”
Again we find Paul asking why they would uphold a custom other churches did not. In this case the Corinthians were cropping women’s hair in a misguided effort to make them all equal i.e. men. the same custom is found still in the fourth century. A synod which met a Gangra condemned a sect which had women cut their hair and wear man’s clothes in order to fulfill Gal 3.28.
If we keep 1 Cor 14.34-5, we keep also the awkward repetition of “in the churches” which is (most likely) due to its first location after v.40. In all Western Manuscripts, verses 34-35 are found after v.40 and it was gradually moved to its current location. Payne has made a convincing case for the interpolation, citing Bishop Victor’s ordering of a re-writing of the text in the margin without the two verses, indicating that the Vulgate was in error. He compared the text to Old Latin, and obviously the verses weren’t there. He omitted also 1 John 5:7-8 ,”For there are three that bear witness in heaven: the Father, the Word, and the Holy Spirit; and these three are one,” which is universally believed to be a later addition, added during the Christological disputes.
When we consider that Corinth was a Greco-Roman city and although it had Jews, as did all cities, the customs Paul is correcting in his letter can all be traced back the practices of their own culture. He writes about philosophy, meats offered to idols, sexual immorality etc. We find that the Jews who lived in Corinth were thoroughly Hellenized and that they were removing the sign of their faith – circumcision – in an attempt to become fully Greek, i.e. Gentile. Why would a congregation such as the Corinthian write about the Jewish law and its implications on equality? This becomes even more suspect when we realize that they were trying to make all equal by erasing the distinction of male and female. The hermaphrodite – the androgynous person – shows up in the Hellenistic period and with it the stigma of the male resembling the female is lessened and statues from this era exhibits young men with long flowing hair. The Corinthians clearly had both men and women praying and prophesying in the church for Paul is only objecting to their custom of cutting the women’s hair short, not that they did not allow women to pray out loud. Hence, why would they have argued for the silencing of women?
You all had great comments; I’ll get back to you on those ones a little later today.
And Mark, welcome back! I almost emigrated to Australia in 2000 when I was visiting relatives in Melbourne, but I ended up moving to the US when I married Ira. Perhaps it was a good thing, I don’t know about those spiders and snakes….
Dave, regarding “epitrepo,” you got it right. There is no commandment which states that a man must have authority over the woman, neither is there a commandment which forbids women from teaching men. The only place they can find it is – surprise! – in 1 Tim 2! Perhaps Paul thought of Eph 5.21, but if you look around, the Bible is filled with general statements of equality: “Love another,” “serve another,” “if anyone teaches,” “If anyone ministers,” etc. These are all twisted to mean, “women, love men,” “women, serve men,” “men, teach women,” “women, minister to men (i.e serve).” If Paul really meant business he would have used the word paraggello as he did in 1 Cor 7:10 “To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband.” (NIV) This is based on the creation account and the words of Jesus:
Mark 10:5-9
And Jesus answered and said to them, “Because of the hardness of your heart he wrote you this precept. 6 But from the beginning of the creation, God ‘made them male and female.’ 7’For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, 8’and the two shall become one flesh’; so then they are no longer two, but one flesh. 9 Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”
In creating doctrines which govern the church, the rule of thumb is that it must be found in the Old, the Gospels and the Epistles. I.e. We must find at least a shadow of it in the Old Testament, it must be found in some form in the Gospels and expounded on by the apostles. If a concept is found only in the epistles, the likelihood of it being a local problem is evident. For instance the offerings the apostles were gathering from the Gentile churches to the church in Jerusalem can hardly be constructed as a permanent command for all churches at all times. The holy kiss was omitted as the accusation of sexual immorality was getting the church in trouble in the early centuries. And consider the spiritual gifts, which many believe ceased with the creation of the canon (a reaction against Montanism and the abuse of the prophetic gift for sure, but perhaps a valid argument). Hence, in 1 Tim 2 we find an argument against a woman who is teaching heresy and dominating men. Certainly we find women who taught heresy in OT but where is the universal condemnation of women teaching men? Where does an OT writer say that because Adam was created first, women should be silent and in submission? On the contrary, we find that women taught men (Miriam, Deborah), even kings (Huldah) and they were certainly not silent. Eve’s creation from Adam is regarded only as creating one flesh (repeated in Eph 5) for the purpose of godly offspring (Mal 2.15) (a thought repeated in 1 Cor 7.14.).
Cheryl, I have to go to work, but I’ll get back to you on Adam’s prior creation a little later.
“If Paul really meant business he would have used the word ‘paraggello’ as he did in 1 Cor 7:10 “To the married I give this command (not I, but the Lord): A wife must not separate from her husband.'(NIV)”
But instead he used “epitrepo” (permit).
And he could have used the uncontested ‘exousia'(authority),
but instead he used ‘authenteo.”
In 1 Cor. 11 –
Paul could have used the word ‘arche’ the common clear word for ruler.
But instead he use ‘kephale’ which is known to have other shades of meaning.
In other words (pun intended) he could have said that men rule over and/or have authority over women, *but* he did not.
I wonder why?
The rest of God’s commands are clear. Why is this one so fuzzy?
Kay – “gengwall, Bonding, schmonding…”
hahahahaha touche’
(that is if, as I suspect, at least secondarily, your comment is a retort to my “apple, schmapple” of comments gone by)
gengwall, your suspicion is founded…as usual 😉
I’m just waiting for Cheryl to get done having morning coffee so she can post a nice graphic for ‘male bonding’………..
Don’t get me wrong, gengwall. I have nothing against males or bonding. In fact, I’m happily married to one, the proud mother of one, the daughter of one, and the friend of some.
Very cute Kay!
I am just taking a break and checking the blog before I get nose deep into our business taxes. Not my favorite thing to do. So here goes…bonding true male style…
.
My anti-spam word is “male”.
Seems appropriate.
Male bonding…potatoe sack racing…not what first came to mind…Canadians… 😉
Suzanna, the spiders are not so bad…most of them get eaten by the snakes…
Dave,
Remember the cowardly lion from a few posts ago….
Cheryl – you could have reposted the Brave Heart picture and come out just fine.
“Suzanna, the spiders are not so bad…most of them get eaten by the snakes…”
It wasn’t the snakes or spiders for me, it was the sharks at the beach by Seaspray and Geelong…
Ah yes, the sharks…they ate all the snakes…so if we stay on land we are safe.
No lions, cowardly or not in Australia.
AAAHHHH!!! I get so frustrated sometimes!! I posted the whole list of quotes which shows how the early church used kephale on another message board, and the response was, ” that was nice but it does not show that the meaning of the word kephale is source.” How thick can one be! Of course it doesn’t; that was never the purpose! Debating with some people is like squeezing water out of a rock.
It is pretty funny to find that Bruce Ware is so mixed up he doesn’t know which way is up on kephale. And imagine him, the revered leader of the ETS, which is meeting this week.
Ware writes in his new book Big Truth for Young Hearts,
(page 97)
Adam was the first human at the head, or start, of the human race.
But on the CBMW site in his summaries of comp and egal, he has already said,
“And remember, although animals were created before Adam, Adam was told to name the animals and this clearly indicates his headship over them.”
This is patently ridiculous. Did the scriptures ever say that man was the head of animals? Where do women fit in then? And doesn’t Ware indicate that head can legitimately mean beginning? I think Ware has turned around evolution and is indicating that men are the ancestors of apes or something like that.
But Ware not only has completely deceived himself into thinking he has something worth saying, but he has written an entire book for children in which he writes,
“God created men and women in his image fully equal in their human nature, but different in certain roles in which they also have differences in authority and submission. This is part of the beauty of male-female relationships as God designed them.”
Imagine telling little boys things like that so that when they view porn in their teen years they can think of women all tied up in chains as in their rightful position because they were born to it.
I think Waneta Dawn has the right take on this in her most recent post on the Submission Tyranny blog.
“Note Mark that it was the guys who believed in you. Three cheers for male bonding! I must now go duck and cover from the inevitable grenades that will be launched my way.”
Are you saying I’m a guy? ;P
Anti-spam word = woman 🙂
“If we keep 1 Cor 14.34-5, we keep also the awkward repetition of “in the churches”
Hi Susanna!
But it is not awkward if Paul is refuting the quote!
I think Paul basicaly boxed it up and then spit it out.
“Dave, regarding “epitrepo,” you got it right. There is no commandment which states that a man must have authority over the woman, neither is there a commandment which forbids women from teaching men. The only place they can find it is – surprise! – in 1 Tim 2!”
Susanna, they can’t find a thing. 🙂
Cheryl has worked 1 Tim 2 so I refer you to her posts on it.
“It is pretty funny to find that Bruce Ware is so mixed up he doesn’t know which way is up on kephale. And imagine him, the revered leader of the ETS, which is meeting this week.”
Shameful I will add.
Pinklight: The question I asked myself when I considered the quote hypothesis was: how is Paul refuting the quote? What in the following can be constructed as a rebuttal?
Or did the word of God come originally from you? Or was it you only that it reached? 37 If anyone thinks himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things which I write to you are the commandments of the Lord. 38 But if anyone is ignorant, let him be ignorant. 39 Therefore, brethren, desire earnestly to prophesy, and do not forbid to speak with tongues. 40 Let all things be done decently and in order.
What does Paul refer to when he writes, “the things I write to you are the commandments of the Lord?” If he is referring to women being allowed to speak, why is this rebuttal not found in 1 Cor 11 where he expounds on the question of women praying in the church, and why were these two verses found after v. 40 before they were transferred over to their current location? Not that I necessarily disagree with the quote hypothesis, but there are just too many loose ends that I personally cannot tie, which is why I favor the interpolation theory. Maybe it is my shortcoming, and maybe I should work a bit harder to find a solution to the question, but since it really does not change my overall view on 1 Cor 11 or 14, I am content with my conclusion for now.
Cheryl, I promise, I will comment on the prior creation of Adam tomorrow. I have a terrible headache and I think I should just go to bed.
“What does Paul refer to when he writes, ”the things I write to you are the commandments of the Lord?” If he is referring to women being allowed to speak, why is this rebuttal not found in 1 Cor 11”
Paul is refering to the entire context of 1 Co 14 where he says that all may participate in all of the gifts, so there is no question of “what is he referign to “IF he is refering to women merely speaking”.
“If he is referring to women being allowed to speak, why is this rebuttal not found in 1 Cor 11 where he expounds on the question of women praying in the church,”
Paul, in 1 Co 11, is NOT expounding on the question of women praying in the church (period) but rather on HOW women pray (with or with not head coverings).
“…and why were these two verses found after v. 40 before they were transferred over to their current location?”
Please establish this as a fact.
Loose ends are tied with the facts.
Today has been extremely busy for me and has kept me away from this place. I still have to “pick up my socks” on Saturday so we’ll see how much time I have to comment here.
The Greek “n” is a disjunctive particle separating opposites which are mutually exclusive. It is used to both call attention to the answer and present a rhetorical set of questions that we are to answer “no!” to. It functions as a “what?!”
So with the quote from the Corinthian’s letter, Paul provides the astonished rhetorical questions that negate the claim that women are to be silent in the assembly. “What! did the word of God come only from you (men)?” Remember the first “gospel” was preached from the women so the word of God could not only come from men. Then..”What! did the word of God come to only you (men)?” Remember Mary sat at the feet of Jesus having the word of God brought to her as well (Jesus said that she picked the necessary and better part).
Why would Paul have had to respond concerning the word of God both coming to and from women as well as men? Because verses 34 & 35 claimed that women were not to learn in the assembly but were to learn at home and women could not give out the gospel as they were to be silent in the assembly.
The things that Paul commanded are throughout chapter 14. Verse 1 commands us to “pursue love” and “desire earnestly spiritual gifts but especially that you may prophesy”. Verse 12 “seek to abound for the edification of the church” is also a command.
The commands from the Lord are to pursue the gifts especially that we may all prophesy. The commands from God in chapter 14 release women to use their gifts. The command from men in verse 34 & 35 silences women’s gifts. Paul also ends with a command not to forbid speaking in tongues and once again the command to desire earnestly to prophesy. These are all godly commands and all from the Lord. They are set apart by verse 36 as being in direct opposition to verse 34 & 35 that commands silence.
Now as far as the thought of interpolation, the problem with that is that there is no manuscript without these verses. Some manuscripts have them at the end of the passage and some in its present form. But none are missing the two verses so they are in the original and we need to deal with them. If they are left in their place at 34 & 35, (which I believe is the original location) then verse 36 makes sense because Paul is rhetorically questioning whether only they (men) have given out God’s word and only they (men) have been given the privilege of receiving the word. The answer has to be “no” since we have examples in the Scripture of women both as faithful students of the word and faithful givers of the word. What else would Paul be contradicting since he is questioning whether the word came to them alone and from them alone? Without verses 34 & 35 to contradict, verse 36 stands out like a sore thumb.
I believe that the discrepancy of the positioning of the two verses is because the early church didn’t quite know what to do with the two verses. They couldn’t just remove them since it is a great sin to add or remove from God’s word. Yet the two verses posed a great problem since the verses are within a segment that begins and ends with commands to desire to prophesy and also ends with a command not to silence speaking (in tongues). It appeared to them that the verses were contradicting everything else that Paul said, and indeed they to contradict. But the contradiction is solved if Paul is merely quoting from the Pharisaical demands for the oral law and then refuting and contradicting those demands.
Since there is no manuscript that is without the two problematic verses, we cannot ignore them. There is not one piece of evidence that shows that the original manuscript was without the verses. It is not their inclusion that was the main consideration but where they were to be included. If they are removed from their place and put at the end of verse 40 then they are removed from the strong rebuttal that Paul has in verse 36.
As far as the question why this was not included in chapter 11, that chapter has a command for men not to wear the head covering yet permission for women to cover or not to cover depending on shame. There is no command for women in chapter 11 but commands galore throughout chapter 14 all designed to “edify the church”. Speaking forth with our gifts, Paul says, edifies the church, and it is only tradition of men that silences women.
So once again, the issue of interpolation cannot be solved by removing the verses and ignoring them. There is no evidence at all from the manuscripts that these verses were not there in the original. Like them or not, we have to deal with them. The quotation solution deals with the issue of man’s tradition regarding women with the two freedoms for women given by Paul as answers to his rhetorical questions. In my DVD set I bring this out within a verse by verse presentation of the passage and I have been told by pastors that the presentation is logical, understandable and powerful. If there are holes in the argument, I haven’t seen the holes yet and even CBMW wasn’t able to refute my argument when they received a copy of the DVDs.
Sue,
Thanks for picking up on that one! Excellent observation and looks like Ware is more than aware that “head” can mean beginning for humans. This quote is quite revealing.
Mark,
Shucks, I thought you were like the rest of them. We couldn’t keep a comp here for love or money. You are truly a gem amongst us thorns 😉
I know it will take you a bit to catch up too. I too have been busy and haven’t been able to catch up yet myself.
Well, we don’t have any money to bribe you to keep you here, but how about some love?
I am off to bed now. It is been a long day and I am exhausted.
Night all.
Wow i am so far behind. I will attempt to respond to Suzanne over the next few days once i get more of a chance, as i feel i owe it to her to answer some of her comments.
““…and why were these two verses found after v. 40 before they were transferred over to their current location?”
This is a reasonable question. They were also found in the margin of some manuscripts. Kevin Giles deals with this in one of his last two books…. I think its in Trinity and Subordinationism.
I suspect that because it was in two different places in the text , one being after verse 40 and another one elsewhere (I don’t recall), that it seems more likely that it was originally in the margin, and likely also beside where it is now inserted. This would be for clarification that Paul is referring to something the Corinthians wrote in their letter to him, that Paul was referring to.
The thing is that we don’t have to reject these verses as verse 36 contradicts the man-made command to restrict women. It is certainly reasonable that some Jewish tradition followers would restrict women’s voices. The woman’s voice was considered provocative (or filthy) and by tradition wasn’t allowed for men to hear lest they end up lusting. However Paul’s attitude was completely different. His words that women’s gifts edified the assembly were to be the norm of the Christian view of women in contrast to the worldly way that denigrated women and made them of lesser value. It was an amazing thing that women’s prophesy was considered of equal value in the assembly as men’s prophesy.
I can certainly see how many would consider that verses 34 & 35 had to be an interpolation because of the way these verses contradicted everything that Paul had just said. However if we pay close attention to verse 36 we will see that Paul only quoted the view to contradict it and removing the verses leaves verse 36 hanging without any reference to what Paul was contradicting. Verse 36 by itself must be answered by those who wish to remove verses 34 & 35.
In the end we all agree that verses 34 & 35 could not be Paul’s “commands from the Lord” since they are in direct contradiction to the commands both before and after these verses.
I agree Cheryl, that at the end we all agree about the meaning of 1 Cor 14.34-5 as not restricting women from participating in worship. But I have one more qualm… if verse 36 indicates verses 34-5 are a quote, why did the Greek Patristic writers not recognize it? Chrysostom argued that women ought to be silent in church based on 1 Cor 14.34-5. He was trained in rhetoric, as was Augustine, and since the what! particle was a common form in rhetoric, why did he not recognize it? Did he just ignore it? Augustine read the Bible in Latin. Did the translation not convey the meaning correctly? In 1 Cor 6:18-20 the same particle is found in verse 19.
“Flee sexual immorality. Every sin that a man does is outside the body, but he who commits sexual immorality sins against his own body. 19 Or (What!) do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? 20 For you were bought at a price; therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God’s.”
Verse 18 is not a quote, neither is Paul refuting a false argument made by the Corinthians. Instead he is anticipating an argument from them, i.e. he acts as if they had argued against his words (a common technique in rhetoric) and continues to affirm what he had just stated to be true. If the same is true of 1 Cor 14, Paul would be affirming his words that women ought to be silent and this is exactly how all the Patristic writers read the text.
Let’s look at 1 Cor 14 again
“And the spirits of the prophets are subject to the prophets. 33 For God is not the author of confusion but of peace, as in all the churches of the saints. 34 Let your women keep silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak; but they are to be submissive, as the law also says. 35 And if they want to learn something, let them ask their own husbands at home; for it is shameful for women to speak in church. 36 Or (What!) did the word of God come originally from you? Or was it you only that it reached? 37 If anyone thinks himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him acknowledge that the things which I write to you are the commandments of the Lord.”
If we remove 34-5 we have Paul anticipating an argument from the Corinthians that they should not wait for their turn, that it is ok for all of them to speak at the same time, and he asks them if the word of God came originally from them, and if anyone of them thinks he or she is prophet, he/she ought to recognize that he is writing the commandments of the Lord.
Here’s what I wrote in my book:
Carson is aware that the Western tradition knew of a variant position, but he is mistaken of the variant itself.
“The relevant textual evidence is quickly stated. Verses 34-35 appear in all known manuscripts, either in their present position, or in the case of all Western witnesses, after verse 40 (D F G 88* a b d f g Ambrosiaster Sedulius-Scotus). In addition, Codex Fuldensis (a Latin manuscript written between A.D. 541, and A.D. 546 by order of Bishop Victor of Capua) places the verses after verse 40, but also inserts them in the margin after verse 33. It appears that, despite the uniformity of the Western tradition, Victor, or those who worked at his bidding, became aware of the placement of the verses outside their own tradition and signaled their hesitation in this way.”
Carson believes the variant concerns the location of the two verses, but B.M. Metzger, whose error Carson perpetuates, admitted to Philip B. Payne that he had never seen the actual text. After viewing a photocopy of the manuscript, which shows that Bishop Victor ordered a rewriting of verses 36-40 in the bottom margin and not next to verse 33 and after verse 40, he admitted that “his statement in the Textual Commentary on the NT is in error.” As Payne explains, the scribe placed a symbol next to verse 33 to signal where to begin to read the text found in the bottom margin,
“I conclude that Bishop Victor ordered the rewriting of 1 Cor 14:34-40 in the margin of Codex Fuldensis with vv. 34-[3]5 omitted and that there is a text-critical siglum that indicates the scribe’s awareness of a textual variant at the beginning of 1 Cor 14:34 in codex Vaticanus. This text-critical evidence, plus the evidence from the non-Western ms 88* and Vulgate ms Reginensis with vv. 34-[3]5 transposed after v. 40, makes an already strong case for interpolation even stronger.”
Professor Metzger agreed that “the most natural explanation is that Victor ordered the rewriting of the text of 1 Cor 14.36-40 to replace all of vv. 34-40 in the text above and that this implies that Victor believed that 34-[3]5 was an interpolation.”
The Codex Fuldensis (A.D. 546) is the earliest dated manuscript of the New Testament and the only manuscript edited by “one of the eminent scholars of the early church,” Bishop Victor, who combined Tatia’s Diatessaron (the four Gospels) and Jerome’s Vulgate, which he substituted for the Old Latin. Payne concludes that “we must assume that Victor had sufficient evidence to convince him that the Vulgate text was wrong at 1 Cor 14:34-[3]5.” The Vulgate included also 1 John 5:7-8 with a preface claiming to be written by St. Jerome which “accuses the Latin translators of omitting this testimonium.” Bishop Victor omitted these verses, which supports the existence of interpolations in the Vulgate.
As noted before, Carson believes the second and third century textual traditions should have been affected by the first wherefore an early interpolation would have been impossible. But the incorrect rendering of Genesis 3:16 in the Vulgate was not challenged in the fifth century although Hebrew Bibles and the Septuagint were widely available. It is therefore not surprising that an interpolation of the same nature had been readily accepted and that the dissenting voices were few and far apart.
The existence of interpolation in the Bible is not disputed by scholars; what is disputed is what verses were interpolated into the Bible during the theological controversies. I heartily recommend “Misquoting Jesus” by Bart Ehrman. He explains in detail how manuscript scholars work when they try to determine what the original text would have looked like. We have as many variants in the existing manuscripts as there are words in the entire NT. Although it is very tempting to believe that God has protected the Bible from corruption, this is not the case. Instead we must use vigilance and the highest level of scholarship to determine what the Bible actually says. My favorite example of this is the side note a scribe wrote on the margin on the fourth-century Codex Vaticanus, “Fool and knave, leave the old reading, don’t change it!” (Ehrman, 44). Origen complained bitterly about the state of the Gospels in the middle of the third century, as the manuscripts he had available disagreed widely.
That 1 Cor 14.34-5 is found in all manuscripts does not lessen the likelihood of an interpolation. The Johannine Comma and the Adulterous Woman is also found in all manuscripts, yet they are considered to be later additions. What is usually used as in indication of an interpolation is that the verse(s) is found in multiple locations. E.g. the Adulterous Woman is found in five different locations. If we had the original manuscripts and if there weren’t as many variants in the existing manuscripts, then yes, we could argue that the verse belongs in the Bible without a doubt. We must also remember that the fourth and fifth century church tightened its reign in an attempt to create uniformity in doctrine, which was especially the wish of Emperor Constantine. Any writings which were considered heretical were destroyed. The Gnostic writings, condemned to be destroyed, were hidden in this era in the desert of Upper Egypt by monks. Much of what Origen wrote was destroyed, since he was posthumously declared a heretic. Yet, in the sixth century scholars must have had manuscripts in their possession in which these verses did not exist which is evident from Bishop Victor’s margin. These manuscripts did not survive (as is also true of the writings of Marcella’s, Jerome’s sister) which is of course not a surprise since 1 Cor 14.34-35 was used as a counterpart for Gen 3.16 which by now said “under the man’s authority will you be, and he shall rule over you,” and imperative in the argument that women ought to be silent in the church and not allowed near the altar.
So sorry, I forgot to mark where the excerpt ends! It ends here:
It is therefore not surprising that an interpolation of the same nature had been readily accepted and that the dissenting voices were few and far apart. (Here ends the excerpt)
“The thing is that we don’t have to reject these verses as verse 36 contradicts the man-made command to restrict women. “
I agree, Cheryl. IMO the fact that they were in different places and in the margin only solidifies the fact that they were a quote from the Corinthians Judiaizers trying to continue their oral teachings silencing women. Whereas, Paul was seeking to free the women from false bondages and release them to be used of the HS as God saw fit.
I suppose it may be difficult for some to discern with absoluteness, whether they were an interpolation or a quote. And I’m willing to grace grace that choice to them.
Susanna,
You said:
To me, this is an easy one to answer. Paul is so often misunderstood because of one’s own prejudices. While Chrysostom said that Eve’s subordinate status was an effect of sin, he also said that Eve was inferior to Adam in the beginning. Chrysostom describes her innate weakness when she talks to the serpent. His own prejudices against women as complete equal with men from the beginning caused him not to look below the surface on Paul’s writing in 1 Cor. 14. Chrysostom sees the image of God as the ability to govern and he sees this as given to men alone. It is no wonder that he sees no need to research further why 1 Cor. 14:34, 35 are a direct contradiction to the words given to men and women throughout the rest of chapter 14. Pure and simple – it is prejudice.
Actually I do believe that this is a contradiction of a quote from the Corinthians. The quote is stated twice in verse 12 with two refutations of Paul’s immediately following each quote.
The Corinthian mindset was that once we are Christians we can do anything that we want to, thus “all things are lawful for me”.
Here are just a few commentaries who also see verse 12 as a slogan or quote of the Corinthians themselves:
So instead of anticipating an argument from the Corinthians, Paul is refuting their thinking that has already been communicated to him. I believe that the fact that it is repeated twice shows that it isn’t a theoretical argument, but an actual argument that they have used that Paul’s shows is in error.
You said:
This is not the view of the Exegetical Dictionary of the New Testament which states:
Here we see clearly that 1 Cor. 14:36 has introduced rehetorical questions to which a negative answer is expected. It also relates mutually exclusive statements. Either the Corinthians are correct (women must be silent in the assembly) or Paul is correct (women may freely use their gifts in the assembly). They are mutually exclusive. We cannot hold to both. Paul says that his commands are from the Lord which relegates the command of tradition to a place of complete ineffectiveness and thus a statement of error.
If Paul were merely anticipating an argument, I believe it would be the first of its kind. In other places Paul quotes the slogan or the saying of the Corinthians and then shows the error. It is far more powerful to include the quote and to see where the error is, rather then to say that Paul is anticipating something that the Corinthians have never actually said.
While it is to be conceded that interpolations have occurred, we also have manuscript evidence of the script without the interpolations so we can see what was actually added to the text. However with 1 Cor. 14:34, 35 there is not a single manuscript without this text. Not even one. Until the church finds older manuscripts without the disputed text, we must assume that they are in the original. This sets this passage completely at variance with other “interpolations” since it is always in the text without exception.
Like I said, we do agree that the verses do not belong to Paul or to his official Christian position. But my position that verse 36 aptly refutes verses 34 & 35 while dealing with an actual argument and not a guess by Paul will answer the challenges of those who also hold strongly to the position that the verses are in the original. If we only hold to the position that the verses are not in the original then we have no other answer. My answer works either way, yet having verse 36 as hanging on its own without something to contradict goes against the grammar as given by the EDNT. I believe that this is the safest way to handle this problem and since Paul has done this before and I know of no other situation where he didn’t quote the opposition, I think it is consistent with Paul and logic.
I believe very strongly that God has protect His Word from corruption. Not that there are not manuscripts that have no errors or interpolations, but that there is enough of the manuscripts available and very old manuscripts produced before the interpolation, that we can have complete confidence that none of God’s words has been completely removed or that there is no manuscript(s) that contains the correct words as God wrote them.
This was a crisis of faith for me in the mid 1980’s and I came through it by faith and God has blessed that faith so many times that I cannot accept that God’s word is with error. If I accepted that, then I would have throw up my hands and wonder what truth there really is? I come to the Bible assuming that in the originals God’s word is without error and that God has never allowed that truth to be completely distorted but has preserved His Word so that we can trust it and learn to trust Him too.
What this means then is that God is unable to preserve His word accurately in this area. I do not accept that. I believe that it is far better for us to reason through the text to find the truth with the verses intact rather than to doubt that God was able to preserve His Word in this one instance.
No, this passage is not found in all manuscripts. I will give two quotes to prove this matter.
So while we have the passage in John 8 missing from the oldest and most reliable manuscripts, 1 Cor. 14:34, 35 is in those manuscripts so there is no correlation between the two.
So since I hold strictly to Bible inerrancy, I am not willing to remove 1 cor. 14:34, 35 without solid evidence. There is no such evidence at this time and without that evidence I am compelled to allow verse 36 to be a very strong argument of Paul’s against the two verses that were some of the Corinthian’s position based on tradition and prejudice.
Cheryl, I am very well aware what Chrysostom wrote about women and his arguments for the inferiority of women. But he adhered also to the historic-grammatical method of the Antiochian school and he was very careful in his exegesis of the Bible. Hence he argued that Junia was an apostle par excellence, Phoebe was a deacon, Priscilla a co-worker etc. He tried to assimilate the fourth century view of the inferior woman who was solely guilty at the fall, while adhering the historical understanding of the church, hence the contradictions in his theology.
You wrote:
“Actually I do believe that this is a contradiction of a quote from the Corinthians. The quote is stated twice in verse 12 with two refutations of Paul’s immediately following each quote.
1 Cor 6:12 All things are lawful for me, but not all things are profitable. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be mastered by anything.
The Corinthian mindset was that once we are Christians we can do anything that we want to, thus “all things are lawful for me”.
(Here ends the quote)
Let me see if understood you correctly. Are you saying that the Paul is refuting several quotes in 1 Cor 6.12-20? In this case, why is the particle found only in verse 19?
Susanna,
I commend him on that! The stumbling block for many who have been accurate in other areas, is that Paul is a hard one to crack. Peter says it well in that Paul is hard to understand. This is why it is easy for some to fall on Paul (fall on Paul is that a rhyme??) when they have their own presuppositions. It is difficult to go back into the minds of these men and figure out why did they do that. Unless they tell us, we are stuck with guessing which isn’t always a good thing to do. But never-the-less, Chrysostom certainly was wrong in thinking that the verses in question were Paul’s own command.
Paul’s grammar is adversarial throughout. In verse 12, there is an adversative particle.
This particle indicates a teaching by Paul that is in direct opposition to what preceded his view. Paul used different methods to negate the Corinthians view. I have a quote in my DVD set on 1 Cor 14 that quotes a very old commentary that says whenever we come to a position that seems opposite to Paul’s stated view elsewhere, we can assume that it is a view that is quoted from the letter from the Corinthians to Paul and that Paul then refutes the view. Sorry I can’t remember the name of the fellow who said this. I have a brain bubble today and can’t recall the details and too busy to go research my own work.
So in answer to your question, yes I do believe that Paul is refuting false views throughout 1 Cor. and I list some of these places on my DVD and this view is very common with even some Bibles putting quote marks around what they consider to be the quote from the Corinthians.
Since 1 Cor 6.12-20 came up I was curios how Chrysostom treated the text, i.e. if he recognized the particles you mentioned. He didn’t. However, he did recognize it in 1 Cor 14.34-5.
But besides these things, he also shames them by consideration of what all agreed on, and what was every where prescribed; which topic also here he has set down, saying,
“What? Was it from you that the word of God went forth? Or came it unto you alone?”
Thus he brings in the other Churches also as holding this law, both abating the disturbance by consideration of the novelty of the thing, and by the general voice making his saying acceptable. Wherefore also elsewhere he said, “Who shall put you in remembrance of my ways which be in Christ, even as I teach everywhere in all the Churches.” And again, “God is not a God of confusion, but of peace, as in all the Churches of the saints.” And here, “What? Was it from you that the word of God went forth? Or came it unto you alone?” i.e., “neither first, nor alone are you believers, but the whole world. ” Which also writing to the Colossians he said, “even as it is bearing fruit and increasing in all the world,” Colossians 1:6 speaking of the Gospel.
I did not find/identify the particle you mentioned in verse 12 in my Greek NT. Which one am I looking for?
An additional problem with the view that Paul is refuting several quotes from their text is that the text continues immediately with, “Now concerning the things of which you wrote to me: It is good for a man not to touch a woman.”
You see, I do not necessarily disagree with you but the method that I found the safest is to look at an argument from every possible angle to find a weak point, an inconsistency, an error. Comps can’t stand such discussion because they take everything so dreadfully personally. I am so very glad that you none of you do. It is delightful to be able to discuss thorny theological questions without the tantrums and insults. Imagine what would happen if everyone did so? We would have a better theology and less divisions. Oh, and thanks for the correction, you are right: the Adulterous Woman is not found in the older manuscripts, but I am fairly sure that the Johaninne Comma is. Either way, my theology is not dependent on an inerrant Bible. I can accept very easily that people have tampered with it and changed things around. What I cannot accept is dogmatism for more often than not the dogma is based on an error. I just read a fascinating book about Bible interpretation (I can’t remember the name just now) and how inerrancy became part of theology with Scholasticism and the concept that the Bible was a science book.
The problem I have with the concept that we must accept 1 Cor 14.34-5 because they exist in every manuscript is that comps reject female leadership because we do not find women deacons in the West until the fifth century. They do appear, with women elders (!) in the fifth, in the middle of the campaign to have them removed. History is just not that reliable. The argument that women deacons were an import from the East just doesn’t sit very well either since the bishop of Rome was incensed by the elevation of the See of Constantinople to the same level of importance with the See of Rome by the Council of Chalcedon. I just can’t see the Roman bishop adopting a custom from the East while he is trying to impose his own view on all the other Sees. Of course, stranger things has happened.
Hi Susanna,
I wish my blog could show the Greek. I haven’t figured out how to fix that part, but maybe some day. The Greek is alla – but.
You brought up this point:
Yes, that is how Paul brings up the letter in the first place, and minus the reference to what they wrote, Paul also uses “now concerning” in 1 Cor. 7:25, 8:1, 12:1, 16:1. However there are other clues in the text that Paul is also speaking about a contradictory point from the Corinthians even when Paul doesn’t specifically say “now concerning”. The adversitive particle would also be a good clue that Paul is contradicting their view.
I totally agree with you here. This is also what I do because I understand that if there are holes in an argument then I either have misunderstood something, have a wrong argument, or that my correct view needs more work to remove the holes. This is why I was interested in the holes that CBMW would find. But that didn’t happen at all. They apparently weren’t interested in the work it would take to refute my exegesis and so after viewing the material they deposited them under the “g” file if you know what I mean.
I have found this as well, but I am not sure why they are so defensive. Most comps that have come here are male and it was always puzzling to me why they would be the ones who would take things personally and get offended by a strong defense for the free for women to minister in their gifts. After all we were not telling them that they couldn’t use their gifts. The only thing that I could attribute to their reaction is that they liked the special place that they occupied and if the barrier was torn down, they would lose their treasured position. I do honestly think that there are some who believe that the inerrancy of the Scriptures would result from giving women the freedom to minister, but that is not a correct fear.
That is why I really like this blog. The people who come here are genuinely interested in this subject and willing to dialog without tearing a strip off of the other person who disagrees with them. I think most will argue passionately, but without putting a knife in the other’s back. I think that is very commendable and Christ-like.
I appreciate your honesty. I just haven’t had any reason to give up my faith that God was able to preserve His Word. I have a Greek-geek friend, Dr. Dan Wallace, who believes more along your line and we can still be friends. He says that I ask really good questions and he is willing to “clean my clock” 😉 when I misunderstand some fine point of grammar. He persuaded me to buy his last book about a year ago called Granville Sharp’s Canon and Its Kin. It was very expensive book and I am not sure why he thought that I was intelligent enough to understand it. I am not, but I really do try. But even though we disagree on a lot of things (Wallace is a comp and a 4 point Calvinist) we can still have some really good interaction without calling each other names or dig the knife into each other’s backs. He is actually willing to listen to me including watching stuff that I produced on the women’s issue and the Trinity so I do not take that for granted.
And so often those who become extreme dogmatic about their dogmatism 😉 do not appreciate someone challenging them. But I feel that truth is far more important than ego and since all of us are surely wrong on something (even if it is only a minor point) we should all be willing to listen, learn and improve.
Well, that is a history problem, not a Scripture problem and I think that blindness has set in when Phoebe is not considered to be a “real” Deacon. If she wasn’t the real-meal-deal and she was written up in the Scriptures, I don’t know how they could accept any evidence from history.
I think there have been a lot of cover-ups. The Bible talks about those who “suppress the truth”. I think that when the judgment comes we will have our eyes opened to all those in the church who have deliberately suppressed the truth. They will have to answer to God for what they have done.
I do want to say once again how welcome you are here on this blog. You bring a whole different thought to what we already have seen and it is refreshing!
“But I feel that truth is far more important than ego and since all of us are surely wrong on something (even if it is only a minor point) we should all be willing to listen, learn and improve.”
Cheryl,
I really appreciate this attitude that is the basis for your blog.
Cheryl – “The only thing that I could attribute to their (hierarchist males) reaction is that they liked the special place that they occupied and if the barrier was torn down, they would lose their treasured position.”
As a male, hierarchist or not, I would say you have us pegged pretty good.
To be honest, human nature is slightly wicked. It is not easy to let lose of special privileges and share them with others. It’s the sandbox syndrome. 🙂
The thing about the sandbox is that men in particular like it there – we are in our comfort zone within hierarchies. Just look how men interact with each other. I believe that is one of the reasons men feel threatened by an environment of equality. It makes us very uncomfortable. So I would agree that part of the resistence is that we don’t want to give up indivudal power. But another part is that we are very uneasy in a power vacuum. In essence, we don;t know what to do with ourselves and that is very unsettling.
Anyway, that’s a little off topic. Let me see if I can steer back onto the track. As that relates to kephale, I believe that is part of the misunderstanding of Paul’s metaphor’s. When I read Bauer, although I have said above that it almost sounds consipratorial, there is another part of me that thinks he doesn;t get it because the concept of a “head” in human relations that isn’t in charge, is just so foreign. In a sense, we can’t wrap our head around it (uggh!!)
“Well, that is a history problem, not a Scripture problem and I think that blindness has set in when Phoebe is not considered to be a “real” Deacon. If she wasn’t the real-meal-deal and she was written up in the Scriptures, I don’t know how they could accept any evidence from history.”
Quite true. 🙂
But then, I have another problem with the whole deacon and elder thing. First, ‘deacon’ is a transliterated word; it is not a translation. A translation would be ‘minister’ or ‘servant’. The word diakonos was used of all the fellow workers in the gospel. This is because they all served the brethren in the Lord. It was a description of their servant heart in ministering to the churches.
The concept of ordination is not in Scripture, thus to require someone to be ordained (whether elder, deacon, or? )before they can serve in the church is contrary to Scripture. It is an added concept. As well, to assign specifics of service to elders and deacons is also not in Scripture. The fact that there were certain men who were asked to serve tables does not define the service of all deacons, since all fellow workers were called ministers/servants. Elders were the elders/aged/older Christians who ministered to the believers in some specific ministry, especially teaching. How somone ministered must come from the context. Thus how Phoebe served/ministered must come from the fact that she served the church in general signifying leadership and that she was a proistatis of many, also signifying leadership.
“But another part is that we are very uneasy in a power vacuum. In essence, we don;t know what to do with ourselves and that is very unsettling.”
That’s really interesting, gengwall. Does that have anything to do with the fact that males are strength creatures. You are always using your strengths (power) to help others, especially women? And somehow that has morphed into control??
“That’s really interesting, gengwall. Does that have anything to do with the fact that males are strength creatures.”
A acute insight. In the “Genesis to Ephesians” marriage model I am working on I identify the defining contribution of males to the marriage as “strength”. I believe that male “strength” can be used for good or evil. I believe “he shall rule over you” is a reflection of the evil nature of male strength that will be exhibited in a fallen world when we bow to our flesh. I believe that the “love” Ephesians 5 talks to husbands about is a “strong” love; an exhibition of strength as God designed it – spirit led. In our lives, it always seems that our flesh has just a little bit of an upper hand. Or at least, that is the direction we incline toward. So, our fallen, fleshly bodies feel “comfortable” with “he will rule over you” strength. Our spirit led loving strength is in constant opposition, but being, in a sense, “unnatural” to us, it makes us squirm.
Think of Paul’s lament in Romans 8. All humans go through this struggle, of course. But fleshly “strength” and the inclination toward hierarchies it promotes are in stark view for many, if not all, males.
Sorry – Paul’s lament in Romans 7:14-24
“So I would agree that part of the resistence is that we don’t want to give up indivudal power. But another part is that we are very uneasy in a power vacuum. In essence, we don;t know what to do with ourselves and that is very unsettling.”
gengwall,
I was thinking along the lines of: something inside tells us that someone should be in power (be in charge) here and the problem is we think it is us, but it’s not, it is GOD.
How ridiculous of us humans to think we can handle His job perfectly and do it without sin or selfishness.
And I do think it goes with this discussion: I mean a man may not mind being God’s servant, so long as he is the #1 servant and not the #2 helper.
Hi guys, I have a thorny problem: I have been debating with a person who is a translator, so he knows (or should know) how languages work. He insists that kephale in 1 Cor 11.3 must mean a literal head, and that it creates a hierarchy. But he does not believe it means “headship,” just “head.” He uses a lot of Greek secular writers to prove his point, and I have tried to show him that the philosophers had an entirely different worldview wherefore we cannot just take their concept and superimpose it on the Bible. He refuses to consider how the church has used the word (isn’t that interesting!) and denies that the word can be used as a metaphor. So, what would your argument be against his concept?
“He insists that kephale in 1 Cor 11.3 must mean a literal head, and that it creates a hierarchy.”
By “literal” does he mean anatomical? He must not because he would then have to prove biologically how the anatomical head has “authority” over the anatomical body. Of course, the head/body metaphor is not imployed in 1 Cor 11.
He therefore must believe that there are 2 literal versions of kephale, one anatomical and the other human relational. After all, he can’t possibly be arguing that ALL uses in 1 Cor 11 are anatomical or the verse would mean that a woman should cover her husband with a veil when she is prophesying, etc. On the same note, he can’t be arguing that NONE of the uses are anatomical since it would, in essence, produce the same absurdity when interpreting the verse. So he must be saying there are two literal meanings. I don’t know that I disagree, even though Bauer calls the non-anatomical uses figurative. But that is neither here nor there.
So, what uses is he citing in secular writers that show a hierarchy in human relations identified with the use of kephale? It is surprising that Liddel-Scott finds no such uses since it is a comprehensive (not just biblical) lexicon..
And how is he explaining away the non-hierarchical uses in the LXX, and more importantly, the use of other Greek words for rosh when hierarchy is implied?
My general response to people who show no proof but simply spew out dogma is “your saying so doesn’t mean it’s so. Prove it.” If he insists on ignoring any argument that makes him rethink (or, horrors, doubt) his position, he is hardly worth talking to.
When I say “verse” above, I mean “passage”.
“He refuses to consider how the church has used the word (isn’t that interesting!) and denies that the word can be used as a metaphor.”
Ever? That would simply be absurd. Paul clearly is suing a metaphor in his head/body passages. I mean, a translator certainly knows what a metphor is, right? The metaphorical usage in certain passages is undeniable (although not unignorable, as Bauer proves). On the other hand, in 1 Cor 11, I would tend to agree. Again, the head/body metaphor doesn’t exist and I don’t see the other non-anatomical uses to be metaphorical. But that doesn;t mean they literally mean authority either. Such would have to proven by the context, expecially if the usage proposed is outside of the language mainstream.
Good Morning everyone!
TL, you said,
I fully agree with the main point you were making and this is a bit of an aside, but do you really think the concept of ordination is unbiblical, or is the concept of ordination that we find in the church unbiblical? I see Acts 6:6 as an example of ordination, but I do not want to make much more of it than the fact that they laid hands on and prayed for some guys who were given an opportunity to minister. I guess I think it served to encourage them in their task.
Another angle is that if one takes it as an hierarchy, it is out of order and full of holes.
A proper hierarchy amongst the patriarchalists is: God, Son, HS, then father/husband, mother/wife, children, and servants. It’s really impossible to make the 1 Cor. 11 order sensible if viewing it as an hierarchy of sorts, because of the order: Christ, man, God. What kind of order is that?
However, if one views it as a chronological listing of important events in the human-God relationship there is some sense to it: through Christ came all humanity, through the first man (from his side) the first woman came, through God’s miracle the God/Man Messiah was born of Mary.
Thus what we have are a series of examples of some types of honor. This follows through with the thought that the preaching/prophysying/praying women should honor their husbands according to the cultures just as they honor God in their speaking…. Or some such!
“I fully agree with the main point you were making and this is a bit of an aside, but do you really think the concept of ordination is unbiblical, or is the concept of ordination that we find in the church unbiblical? I see Acts 6:6 as an example of ordination, but I do not want to make much more of it than the fact that they laid hands on and prayed for some guys who were given an opportunity to minister. I guess I think it served to encourage them in their task.”
Well, I look at it sort of like this. We cannot IMO command or demand it as it is today because it isn’t in Scripture. Thus to deny someone the freedom to exercise their gifts unless they become degreed by suchandsuch university and go through ordination ceremonies is just too much. However, I do believe that the original intent was to recognize and honor brothers and sisters in the Lord who were gifted so that the community would pay attention. That is reasonable. The problem is that we have added so much through our traditions, to the Scriptures teachings on ministries that we have ended up using these means to deny Christians and discourage Christians from serving in the local communities. And frankly, I’d like to see churches laying hands and praying over those in whom they see giftings, in order to stir them up and release these people to serve.
This sounds like a difficult debate Suzanna! It reminds me a bit of Grudem and how he decides in his research what kephale means and then comes up with the results, such as kephale meaning source = 0%, but kephale meaning authority = 2.3% (not sure if the figure are exactly correct, I am going from memory). The thing is I am sure if I looked at some of his examples I would not agree that they were reference to authority. People like Grudem want to see authority everywhere. Of course his research had a whole lot of other meanings, which included origin that = 3%!
My point is, while this bloke wants to see authority, he will see it, especiallly if he sees it in a whole lot of other examples he is quoting. It would be very tedious to go through each of his examples and discuss whether or not they really are referring to authority. Perhaps ask him for his top three examples, and if you can show him how these do not mean authority he might start to listen?
If I could lay hands on you and pray for you I would! 🙂
Now TL – there you go being reasonable. We can’t have that!
TL, regarding #207 – I fully agree with you!
“Now TL – there you go being reasonable. We can’t have that!”
Can she be frank, gengwall?1
“Can she be frank, gengwall?”
Just as long as she isn’t logical too? I mean, I don’t know if my gender paradigm could take it! 😉
“After all, he can’t possibly be arguing that ALL uses in 1 Cor 11 are anatomical or the verse would mean that a woman should cover her husband with a veil when she is prophesying, etc.”
gengwall,
LOL – you nailed it. If he won’t even consider a head/body metaphor he is simply ignoring the rest of scripture – as you pointed out before, “Christ is the head of the body, which is His church” and so forth, when referring to the Christ/Church relationship, anatomical context is always there.
LOL 🙂
I am honored to have two men of strength, confer their appreciation upon me. 🙂 I can now attend to the drudgeries of my day with a smile, that I have been heard by someone. Reminds me of Hagar, the Egyptian servant of Sarai, who named God, “the God who hears”. Being heard is important to everyone.
“Just as long as she isn’t logical too? I mean, I don’t know if my gender paradigm could take it! “
Gengwall, frankly I think that women were logical way before men were. 🙂 I mean, what was logical about the man saying to God, “the woman YOU gave me, SHE made me do it!” hehe After all, Adam knew he knew better. And he had to know God well enough to know that God would see right through that one. Did he think he could fool Eve by that statement and make her feel guilty??
LOL TL. That brings me back to a few posts ago discussing males as creatures of strength. If the male was the brawn of the marriage, does that not make the female the brains? Frankly, that is what I see. Not that men are stupid per se (nor are women weak). But I believe men are not nearly as intuitive or as integrated of thinkers as women are, and therefore often don’t consider “the whole picture” in decision making. I can’t begin to recount the number of times my wife has subtly (and lovingly) questioned some scheme of mine. She has great insight and intuition even in matters where she doesn’t have great education. I have learned over the years to rely heavily on her counsel and her “gut”. (Losing over 30 grand of retirement money when I didn’t listen to her one time has greatly helped my perspective.)
Note how Eve employed reasoning (however flawed) in her decision to eat the apple. Adam, on the other hand, just “took and ate” – and did so knowing the truth! Hmmmm. Who was the greater thinker in that pair?
Gengwall, you wrote: “By “literal” does he mean anatomical? He must not because he would then have to prove biologically how the anatomical head has “authority” over the anatomical body. Of course, the head/body metaphor is not imployed in 1 Cor 11.
He therefore must believe that there are 2 literal versions of kephale, one anatomical and the other human relational. After all, he can’t possibly be arguing that ALL uses in 1 Cor 11 are anatomical or the verse would mean that a woman should cover her husband with a veil when she is prophesying, etc. On the same note, he can’t be arguing that NONE of the uses are anatomical since it would, in essence, produce the same absurdity when interpreting the verse. So he must be saying there are two literal meanings. I don’t know that I disagree, even though Bauer calls the non-anatomical uses figurative. But that is neither here nor there.
So, what uses is he citing in secular writers that show a hierarchy in human relations identified with the use of kephale? It is surprising that Liddel-Scott finds no such uses since it is a comprehensive (not just biblical) lexicon. (Here ends the quote)
His first argument is that a translation must be consistent, i.e. a word cannot mean different things in the same context (I already refuted this concept and he agreed. Well… kind of). Because of this concept, he believes the word kephale must refer to a literal head throughout the text for otherwise we should translate, “a man covers his source.” I pointed out that kephale can also refer to the whole person, which is true in 1 Cor 11.10, and he agreed with this. He thinks that kephale in 1 Cor 11.3 refers to a literal head because he finds his support for his argument from Greek pre-Christian literature. He quoted Philo of Alexandria, the Jewish scholar who wished to make Judaism respectable and hence found that Greek philosophy was compatible with Judaism:
“(125) But all these statements are uttered in a metaphorical form, and contain an allegorical meaning. For as in an animal the head is the first and best part, and the tail the last and worst part, or rather no part at all, inasmuch as it does not complete the number of the limbs, being only a broom to sweep away what flies against it; so in the same manner what is said here is that the virtuous man shall be the head (kephale) of the human race whether he be a single man or a whole people. And that all others, being as it were parts of the body, are only vivified by the powers existing in the head and superior portions of the body. (Philo, On Rewards and Punishments)”
I pointed out that Philo based his argument on Aristotle’s concept that the free-born male is virtuous, whereas the slave is not, and the woman can only be virtuous through obedience to the man, since her deliberative faculty is without authority. Since he uses Philo’s concept to interpret Paul, he makes the woman less virtuous than the man and sees the woman entirely dependent of the man, who is the most divine of the two (echoing the concept that the man is a “Christ-figure” to the woman). Unless he sees the error in this concept, he will never concede. Any thoughts how to make him “see the light”?
BTW, he argued also that “epitrepo” can be used as a synonym to “paraggello” (command) and he saw 1 Tim 2 as saying “I command that a woman should not teach a man.” Of course, he could not agree with the following, “Moses commanded you to divorce your wives because of the hardness of your hearts,” or with such a change in any of the other 16 examples in which “epitrepo” is used. Of course he tried to make it a commandment by saying that Paul was using his authority as an apostle, and that he did not feel that it was enough, hence he used the creation account to support his argument. This is of course a supremely weak argument and won’t hold up to a closer scrutiny, so it seems that “epitrepo” is a great argument against the text being a universal commandment. Couple it with the lack of evidence of a creation-based female subjection during the first 13 centuries, and I think we have an air-tight argument.
“Adam, on the other hand, just “took and ate” – and did so knowing the truth! Hmmmm. Who was the greater thinker in that pair?”
For some reason when I read that I had a mental image of a naked Homer Simpson eating the fruit of the doughnut tree…”Hmmmm fruit…”
I would like to get that image out of my mind now but can’t…so I thought I would plant it in your minds too…
“Any thoughts how to make him “see the light”?”
Yes, but they involve strength and a piece of 4×2…so I will refrain from mentioning it.
“And that all others, being as it were parts of the body, are only vivified by the powers existing in the head and superior portions of the body.”
Hmmm. What portions would be the “superior portions”? It seems even Philo wasn’t willing to claim unilateral superiority of the head.
I wonder how he meshes his concept that “the woman [is made] less virtuous than the man and…the woman [is] entirely dependent of the man, who is the most divine of the two” with Genesis 1 and the almost universal acceptance (or concession on the part of complimentarians) that man and woman are equal in essence and Godly image?
“For some reason when I read that I had a mental image of a naked Homer Simpson eating the fruit of the doughnut tree…’Hmmmm fruit…'”
ROTFLOL – And now appearing at your local community theater – “Eating the Fruit of the Doghnut Tree: a Garden of Eden Retelling” – starring Homer and Marge Simpson as Adam and Eve.
“ROTFLOL – And now appearing at your local community theater – “Eating the Fruit of the Doghnut Tree: a Garden of Eden Retelling” – starring Homer and Marge Simpson as Adam and Eve.”
LOL …. lot of laughing. That’s going to be a difficult mind picture to dismiss. 🙂
What an interesting discussion! A lot of the comments indicate very deep and studious thinkers. As I was reading, I was wondering if Paul understood that the brain is so closely involved with motor movements and even with breathing, and etc. I had heard years ago that in Bible times they thought the heart was where these things were regulated. I did a very quick concordance search and found that “mind” is referring to intellect, that “heart” has 3 different meanings: 1. thoughts and feelings, 2. spiritual perception, hardheartedness, 3. life, mind, soul. If I recall correctly head means “the part most easily siezed.”
I wonder why we don’t hear more about husbands being the most easily seized part of the wife? Adam was certainly easily “seized.” It took less to convince him to eat the forbidden fruit, than it did to convince Eve.
I do not have the dictionaries, etc to go deeper, and would like input from those who do. From what I see so far, there is no mention of the head having anything to do with controlling the body. However, scripture often says things about the heart that suggest it is the seat of controlling an individual. A hard heart, for example, caused unbelief.
If Paul meant a husband was to control his wife or have authority over her, wouldn’t it make more sense for him to have said “the husband is the heart of the wife?” Or the “husband is the mind of the wife?” Those two seem to have more suggestion of controlling the whole person–even to their attitudes–than the biblical rendition of “head” does.
Also, it seems to me that Paul makes it very clear in the context what he means by head. “As Christ is the head of the church and he is the savior of the body.”
I recently heard someone describe the sacrificial giving up of themselves for their wives that is required of husbands to be explained as “being prepared to sacrifice his life for his wife.” From that statement I realized what a large part of the problem is. Many men think the sacrifice that Ephesians 5 is requiring of husbands is only in those times when his wife is in danger of being attacked or when her life is in danger.
To me the passage is requiring husbands to be LIVING sacrifices for their wives. (Rom. 12:1-2) Jesus’s death would have been meaningless if he had lived a self-centered life. But he spent his life serving people–his bride. He didn’t just give himself up for his bride in death, He also spent long hours teaching and healing and loving. From that I gather that husbands are to sacrifice for their wives, to deny their own preferences daily for the benefit of their wives.
If people insist that “head” is referring to a leadership capacity, then “head” should also be viewed in its context, which is more likely to carry the meaning of being the leader in sacrificing his own desires and will. That is HARDLY what the husband authority proponants have in mind!
For “head” to have the meaning of “authority,” the context should read “for the husband is the head of the wife as Christ is the head of the church, and he is the RULER of the body.”
Because “ruler” is not there, interpretting head to mean “source” and “leader in sacrifice” would fit perfectly with the rest of the passage, especially verse 29 “For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church.”
A man will make sacrifices for his body. He will stop working to eat and drink. He will stop eating and drinking to work in order to eat and drink, and etc to care for his welfare. He will lift weights and exercise to strengthen his body. And he certainly will NOT take anything harsh to his private areas! In fact, if I even mention an activity that may hurt his groin, (usually because he is behaving obnoxiously and would deserve it) most men will reflexively cover said groin protectively with their hands.
That nourishing and cherishing is the attitude husbands are commanded to have toward their wives. They don’t limit their own bodies by refusing to allow them what they need for development, nor behave harshly toward them. So why do they think this scripture is encouraging them to do such things to their wives?
Waneta Dawn,
Welcome to my blog! Excellent observations!
Very well thought-out comments. If only comps would pay close attention. This is exactly what Jesus means and makes the most sense of the imagery. None of the Biblical authors are telling men to act in a selfish way by demanding that their own will and way must be followed. There is no better way for a man to bond with and love his wife by sacrificing of his own best interests to benefit her. What woman would not want to respond to that kind of love and to give back respect as she does him good and no harm? It is a mutual love and benefit and starts with the husband’s sacrificial attitude. If more men actually got that, there would be a whole lot more healthy marriages in the church because men who love like this are so easy to love.
For my blog commenters,
I thank you all for your continued participation as we wait for Mark to respond to at least some of our comments and questions. I have not been able to respond to everything here myself as I am in the last days of year end accounting for the Canadian side of our ministry. It is first things first for me right now and I will be back to myself when this is finished.
Cheryl, Waneta D – I used to buy into the term “servant leader” hook line and sinker. One of my favorite speakers, who is no raving hierarchalist, uses it in his teaching. The term has two purposes. First, in relation to Ephesians 5 and Christ/Church relationship, it is an attempt to reconcile the “love” of Christ/Husband with the assumed authority they have over Church/Wife. The second purpose is a little more devious – it is an attempt to distract from the negative ideas about authority by using nice, soft, kind sounding terms.
I now have grown to almost hate the term. It is an oxymoron of the first degree. You can’t both lead from an authoritative posture and serve simultaneously. You have to do one or the other, and in the case of husbands (and church leaders) Jesus and Paul repeatedly insist on serving. The kind of “love” spoken of in Ephesians 5 simply can’t have any authoritative element to it. Authority is antithetical to agapeo love. And “lording it over someone” is the quintessential behavior of an unloving person.
Cheryl,
Hubby and I are about to take a Thanksgiving holiday. I hope everyone types veeeeerrrry sloooowwwly while I’m busy… 😉
I was also wondering about the head/heart subject and when I studied the human body I found that the head directs the nervous system, but the heart directs the circulatory system. I.e. the brain can stop the lungs for a few moment (which makes diving possible), but it cannot stop the heart from beating and dispersing oxygen into the bloodstream. If the brain had the ability, it could easily kill the body for it takes only about 10 minutes for the brain to die due to lack of oxygen. (Just think of those cases in which people stop breathing when in deep sleep.) Thus God created our bodies with two independent systems which work harmoniously together to keep the body alive, and as a metaphor, a husband and wife, as a head and body, work harmoniously together to keep their marriage alive.
Looks like we are going into a thanksgiving lull. Probably won’t check back in until next week. For you Americans – happy turkey day. For the rest of you…I guess…have a normal next 5 days.
Susanna,
That is a beautiful picture of two independent (yet dependent) body systems. Thanks!
To all my American friends,
I wish you a peaceful and joyful Thanksgiving celebration.
.
.
We can catch up again after the 5 day holiday weekend.
“Thus God created our bodies with two independent systems which work harmoniously together to keep the body alive, and as a metaphor, a husband and wife, as a head and body, work harmoniously together to keep their marriage alive.”
Excellent observation, Susanna.
I always teach that the mutuality is about keeping the new life of the marriage alive. 🙂
The troubling part of Paul’s relationship to women is not 1 Cor. 11. If God and Christ are related as men and women are, that is actually liberating for women, because God and Christ are equal. (Phillipians 2:6 says that Jesus “though he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited.” Therefore Father and Son are equal.)
“The women should be silent in the churches, for they are not permitted to speak. Rather, let them be in submission, as in fact the law says. If they want to find out about something, they should ask their husbands at home, because it is disgraceful for a woman to speak in church.” 1 Cor. 14:34-36
Why are we arguing about “head” and ignoring this passage? Now, I agree with many scholars that this is a non-Pauline interpolation, since chapter 11 dealt with head coverings for women who are prophesying and praying. But it doesn’t matter, because the Bible is still the inspired word of God, whether Paul or one of his disciples physicially wrote the letter. Can anyone solve the contradiction between chapters 11 and 14?
Nor should we ignore the equally troubling 1 Timothy 2, which is also probably not written by Paul but again, is also the inspired word of God:
“But I do not allow a woman to teach or have authority over a man. She must remain quiet. For Adam was formed first and then Eve. And Adam was not decieved, but the woman, because she was fully decieved, fell into transgression.”
As someone remarked earlier, how is Adam’s sin any lesser? But I digress.
By referencing Adam and Eve here, and “the law” in the passage above, it would seem to me that Paul or deutero-Paul is making what he considers universally applicable arguments.
I am a 17 year old girl whose passion has been Bible study for years now, and my dream is to study and teach theology professionally. In the classroom I will obviously have authority over men. Is that a sin, just because I have two X chromosomes?
Hi Jessica and welcome to my blog!
I believe that the “hard” passages on women can be resolved without contradiction and with full freedom for women to minister in their gifts and calling. My DVD set does just that and many women have written me to tell me that the information has set them free. Information on how to order the set is at the very top of the page under the tab called DVD. I think that it is good to see how it Paul uses the worldly argument against women to show that God’s commands are opposite from the tradition of men.
Hey Jessica. I’m sure Cheryl will respond with a welcome and more detail but since I’m on briefly right now….
First, I suggest you read through some of Cheryl’s other posts on the specific passages you have questions about. There is a wealth of information throughout this blog on just about every passage which touches on gender dynamics. You may find especially interesting Cheryl’s mock dialog between a complimentarian and Paul. It discusses in detail 1 Timothy 2.
What you will find is that Cheryl and those of like mind here do not find the traditional interpretations and even the translations of these passages to be convincing or trustworthy. Specifically, most here believe that the passage in 1 Cor 14 regarding silence is not an interpolation but a quote from the Corinthians letter to Paul which Paul subsequently rebuts at the end of the passage. Cheryl and Sussana debate that a little in the companion post to this one regarding 1 Cor 11.
As far as 1 Timothy 2 goes, English translations of the Greek of that passage range from poor to horrible. A closer study will reveal that the passage is not at all about what you have probably been told it is about your whole life.
As far as the discussion of head in these posts…well…that is what we are discussing in these posts. It is only one of many topics discussed on this blog including the ones you have your concerns about. So read on and I think you will get some satisfactory answers to your questions.
Hi Jessica!
It would be wonderful if it was equally clear for everyone that 1 Cor 11 teaches equality! About Phil 2, this is how the comps do it: Yes, the Son is equal to the Father, but he chose to became subject and hence, women should choose to become subjects to men since the “man is the head of the woman.” Of course they never seem to realize that they are creating a triple-subjection of the Son: He is subject from eternity (has to be, since the woman is subject from creation), He becomes subject in His incarnation (Phil 2) and will become subject after the completion of His work (1 Cor 15.28). A person can become a subject only once, unless of course, the Son became greater than the Father in His incarnation (since all authority was given to Him by the Father) and will become subject again after He returns the Kingdom (1 Cor 15.28). But then again, didn’t Jesus say that the Father was greater than He was? So you see, it is all a hopeless jumble unless we recognize that the Son was equal with the Father from the beginning, became subject to God in His humanity and will give us His manhood when He completes his work as a mediator and His resurrected incarnation is no longer needed, and God – in all three persons – will be all in all once more.
And about how sinful it would be for you to teach a man in seminary: it would be just about as sinful as for a mother to teach her son. You see, the comps argue that it’s ok for women to teach children, but not grown men. Yet, they argue also that the innate characteristics are present already in small children and not learned from society, which brings us to the conclusion that a boy is really a man, and his mother should not be teaching him or punish him when he is disobedient. They cannot have it both ways, although they ardently wish to do so.
And how wonderful that you want to become a theologian! It has been my wish too since I was 17. But alas! every time I make an attempt to begin my formal studies, something else comes up, such as a new baby, and I must post-pone my studies. It does not mean, however, that I do not study on my own. I have found that it is easier for me to study on my own without the pressure of time lines and exams. Of course, it takes a lot of discipline and money to do so, but it seems to be the way God wants me to do it, at least for now. Don’t let anyone convince you that you cannot do everything God wants you to do just because you are a woman! You will find that for a female theologian the road is going to be rocky, but it will only make you stronger, more patient and a rare jewel among the multitude of mediocre preachers who never had to fight to get were they are and hence never developed a character beyond that which was expected of them. Paul is a great example of a theologian who became great through adversity. Compare his heart to that of the Pharisees and Sadducees, who received all the praise, yet were whitewashed tombs – dead inside.
Sorry, it should say, “gives UP his manhood” not “gives us his manhood.”
I know you are all busy, but I have more time on my hands than usually since my family is away and I am (thankfully!) alone.
Anyways, another observation from biology touches upon the subject of the woman’s creation from the man (i.e. Adam’s prior creation). The man has the sex hormones YX and a woman XX, hence it is the man who decides the gender of the child, for the woman can only give the chromosome X to the child, whereas the man gives either X or Y. From this truth we can observe that it is possible to make a woman out of man, but it is not possible to make a man out of a woman. In other words, had Eve been created first God would have had to supernaturally create chromosome Y to make Adam, whereas when creating Eve from Adam’s DNA, he had to only drop Y to make a woman (and by adding an extra X). Men and woman are the same in all other aspects and although the sex hormones testosterone and estrogen make us either men or women, the balance between the two (men and women have both hormones, men just have 10 times more testosterone) decides largely what kind of persons we end up being and there really isn’t such a thing as a stereotypical male and female which could be used as a measuring stick in determining what roles men and women ought to have. Some men are closer to women in their biological make-up (how their brain works), some women are closer to men in their biological make-up; others are found at the end of the spectrum: the super-feminine women and super-masculine men. The error of complementarism is to use the polars as the only model available which causes them to force most of humanity to live a lie.
Hi Sussana,
This is the first time i have had a chance to be back on the blog and i haven’t read through all of your comments thus far. What i have noticed though is that you have obviously done extensive research on the early and patristic Fathers. Now i have a few questions regarding your comments on the Trinity above…
1. Do you recognise the difference between the essential and economic Trinity? IF so, do you follow the attempts by some to say that subordination in the economic trinity must equal- less God i.e a division of the essential trinity? What is your impression of the early fathers on this topic?
2. Was Jesus in this position before His incarnation? John 1:18?
3. If Jesus ‘humanity’ is what made him subjected, what are we to make of the risen ‘human’ Jesus? Is he still subject or not?
If we get the Trinity wrong we get into big trouble. It opens the gate to all sorts of wrong theology.
Thanks for answering if you get the chance.
Jessica,
please don’t think that comps would make woman not ‘equal’ although some egals might tell you this. Before the throne of grace we are all equal, equal in salvation Gal 3:28, yet distinct (very similar to the Trinity of 1 Cor 11). We can be equal yet have different roles or functions. The problem with our society is that they think being up the front of a church makes you more important and hence the egal push to have women up there because otherwise we are not equal. However this is not the case. A women is just as equal without being the leader of a church. Dont let biblical roles be clouded by societal pressures and misconceptions.
Cheryl,
Just a quick question for you. Do you believe in the reformed doctrine of original sin? If yes, how then do you allow Eve to stay in the garden as a sinner. Also if Eve did not add to God’s instructions why did she not die when she TOUCHED the fruit?
Mark,
Nice to see you back!
As far as the doctrine of original sin I am not aware that there is a different doctrine between those who are “reformed” and just plain old Christians. I do believe what the Bible says – that sin came through the man alone.
Why was Eve allowed to stay in the garden? I think it is quite simple. She was deceived into eating the fruit. She did not sin as a willful act of disobedience against God. With her eyes wide open now to the truth, it appears that God did not see her as a threat to eating from the tree of life if it was now disallowed to her.
Lastly why didn’t she die when she touched the fruit? Well she didn’t die when she ate the fruit either – not right away. The fruit was like a poison and so it wasn’t until the fruit was being digested that both Adam’s and Eve’s eyes were opened.
Okay, one question for you, Mark, which you still have not answered. Do you believe that it is a sin for a woman to teach the Bible to men in a church building? Also if a godly woman teaches correct biblical doctrine is there anytime or place that God sees this as a serious sin against Him? If so, can you show me from the Bible where this “sin” is stated as a sin?
I hope that you exams went well. It is always good to have a lively conversation with an opposer who is respectful.
Cheryl,
I think there is a big difference betwenn the reformed doctrine of sin and others. For example are we dead to sin or just sick? The bible tells us that we are dead (Eph 2:1) and that sin is rebellion and no one can seek God as a sinner (Rom 3:11). Therefore i strongly disagree that Eve was not a threat as a sinner. Her eyes were opened, she rejected God, became a sinner and thus was not entitled to the presence of Yahweh. I believe she was banished, otherwise the effects of sin are not really that serious. Sin came through ‘one man’ because Adam was resposible for the fall as the leader. No where in Gen do we see a seperation of Adam’s sin and Eve’s sin so that only Adam was banished. He is addressed because of his responsibility as the leader.
Romans 5:12 “Therefore, just as ?sin came into the world through one man, and ?death through sin, and ?so death spread to all men because ?all sinned”
The Holy Bible : English standard version. 2001 (electronic ed.) . Good News Publishers: Wheaton
Adam is held as the resposible party. Are women included in the ‘all men’? Sin actually came through the woman first so why does Paul so it came through the man?
In relation to whether i think it is a sin for a woman to preach… obviously there is not a verse which saids “it is a sin for a woman to preach” but there is so much in the bible to teach us that a woman should not be in that position. But that said we are all sinful yet God uses us somehow to glorify his name. So therefore i do not doubt that God uses women to glorify Himself even if they shouldn’t be in a pastoral position. So i do think a woman is being disobedient to the word of God by taking that role.
Mark,
We are supposed to be talking about original sin not the doctrine about being “dead” to sin. For what it is worth, I believe that the Bible explicitly teaches that we are to consider ourselves as dead to sin (Romans 6:11). While we were “in” Adam when he sinned, those of us who are “in” Christ by faith have joined ourselves into his death, burial and resurrection and so are removed from the kingdom of darkness.
As far as original sin, I think that we can all agree that sin came through Adam and not Eve. Eve did not inherit sin through Adam. Her actions were considered a fall into sin through deception but they were not the sin of rebellion. Nowhere does it state that sin comes through Eve or that she had the sin of rebellion inherited from Adam. Instead we can clearly see that after she fell through deception, the promise of the Messiah was given as coming from her seed.
The Bible never says that Eve rejected God. On the contrary the connection with Eve is stated as a deception that could similiarly lead us astray.
Paul states that the one who sins through ignorance can receive mercy.
You can look high and low but you will not find any scripture that states that Eve rejected God or sinned willfully. The fact that God kicked the man out but He did not kick out the woman shows that God knows her heart and it was not in open rebellion as was the man’s heart.
Please prove your point from the Scripture. Give me a verse that says she was banished from the garden.
The Bible does not say that Adam was the “leader” or that sin came through him as the “leader”. Instead the Bible speaks very clearly about the treacherous actions of Adam. (Hosea 6:7)
Why can’t you see it? Can you not see that the earth and the animals were cursed because of Adam’s and the serpent’s sin? Can you see that nothing was cursed because of the woman’s sin? Can you also see that only “the man” is said to be kicked out of the garden? What proof do you show that these inspired words are meaningless and that God meant no division between the sin of the woman and the sin of the man? I would be very interested to hear your Biblical proof.
Not only does the bible never call Adam as “the leader” but Adam is never called to account for Eve. What proof do you have that Adam was a designated “leader”? This is a tradition of men that has no basis in the Bible.
Adam is held as the responsible one for bringing sin into the world and because we were “in” Adam we all fell when he did, but Adam did not bring Eve into sin so he cannot be the “responsible party” for her sin. The fact is that only Adam’s sin is called treacherous. God is a just God who judges the intents and motives of the heart.
Adam sinned willfully and we inherited the sin nature that Adam exhibited. Eve did not inherit that sin nature of rebellion and the Holy One came through her seed alone.
The problem with this is that disobedience to the Word of God is a sin. You cannot say on one hand that a woman who teaches the Bible to men in a church is being disobedient to God yet she is not in sin. How do you reconcile that? And why do you think that the Scripture never lists the godly work of a woman in the church as a sin? Can you explain how every single sin is clearly identified as sin and every sin is repeated in the Scripture, yet this one “disobedience” is never identified as a sin and is never repeated? Can you explain how a disobedience is not a sin and why we should disallow a woman from teaching God’s word to men in the church? Does the Bible ever tell all men to stop all godly women from using their gifts in this way? Does the Bible tell you to stand up and physically stop a woman from teaching the truth of God’s word to men in the church? Why or why not?
I still don’t believe that you have clearly answered my question about sin. Can this question be answered as a yes or a no? Is it a “sin” for a godly Christian woman to teach correct Biblical doctrine to men in the church? Yes or no? If you would answer my question in a clear manner, then we can understand your stand.
Hi Mark,
The problem is that the grammar is in the singluar when “the man” is banished, just like it is when “the man” is created from the dust of the ground:
,blockquote>
2:7And Jehovah God formeth the man — dust from the ground, and breatheth into his nostrils breath of life, and the man becometh a living creature.
3:22And Jehovah God saith, `Lo, the man was as one of Us, as to the knowledge of good and evil; and now, lest he send forth his hand, and have taken also of the tree of life, and eaten, and lived to the age,’ —
And Romans doesn’t say anything about the “one man” through who sin came, being the leader.
To say that the man is addressed because of his responsibility is a blatant addition to the written text itself. You wouldn’t say that God formed both or a plural from the dust of the ground would you, turning the singular “the man” into plural (what a mystery) as you attempt to do with Gen 3:22? And if not then how do you contextualy account for your interpretive inconsistencies (not asking for reasons/beliefs that are additions to the text)? The woman was not banished, the text reads “the man” not “them”.
“The man”
Even compare Gen 2:15 with Gen 3:23. The man was “to serve” (and keep) the garden of Eden but in 3:23 he is “to serve” the ground from which he alone (!) was taken.
The man was made from the ground Outside Of the garden of Eden and now he being banished was going to work that ground from which he was made!
When God made the woman, I wonder if he made the bone/flesh into woman while in the garden of Eden or Heaven ;P
The man was made outside the garden of Eden and then being banished from the garden was now going to work the ground from which he was made.
This is simple. The concepts of “sinning first” and “sin coming into the world through” one who sinned are not the same.
Mark, it can’t be that bad of a thing that the man alone was banished from the garden of Eden, can it, when he wasn’t even created within it?
er…can it, when he wasn’t even created from the ground within it?
Mark,
The one who sinned first is not the one who brought sin into the world. We have to see why that is from the Scriptures not from our tradition. What does the Scripture say?
The man was made from the dust of the ground of which the serpent shall eat all the days of his life (always thought that was odd…). The woman was made from a living being (life). Woman’s creation also forshadowed the church coming out of Christ (Eph 5). Once man had life in him (God blew life into his nostrils) then woman was created. The woman was made out of life but the man, dust from the ground outside of Eden. Hum.
Processing… ;P
life is in the blood (scientific fact and that scripture is in Genesis too somewhere…)
Pinklight: the verse you are looking for is
Lev 17:13-14
“‘Any Israelite or any alien living among you who hunts any animal or bird that may be eaten must drain out the blood and cover it with earth, 14 because the life of every creature is its blood. That is why I have said to the Israelites, “You must not eat the blood of any creature, because the life of every creature is its blood; anyone who eats it must be cut off.” NIV
Anyways, welcome back Mark! I was beginning to wonder whether the beach had claimed you permanently…
I am doing some remodeling while my family is gone, but I will answer your very good questions in a day or two.
I do want to comment on the following: if we argue that ha’adam refers only to the first man (which is Grudem’s error), we must remain consistent throughout the Genesis account. Hence in Gen 1.26-27, God calls the humans he has created (a male) man.
“Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.”
Ortlund argues that this proves that God gave man authority over the woman since he called us collectively (a male) man. In English translations of the Hebrew Bible we find that the word ‘adam is translated “human” since the word is a collective noun for all humans, signifying our origin from dust.
In the following, the intent of the creation of the first human is described.
Gen 2:5
before any plant of the field was in the earth and before any herb of the field had grown. For the LORD God had not caused it to rain on the earth, and there was no man to till the ground;
The point is not that the first human is a man. He is simply a human contrasted to the animals. When the first woman is created, Hebrew uses a play on words:
Gen 2:22-23
Then the rib which the LORD God had taken from man He made into a woman, and He brought her to the man. 23 And Adam said:
“This is now bone of my bones
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called Woman (‘ishshah),
Because she was taken out of Man (‘yish).”
In other words, the woman is a female human, compared to the male human.
In Gen 3:8-9, does God only call the man, or does he also call the woman?
“And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the human and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.” Then the LORD God called to the human and said to him, “Where are you?”
When ha’adam and ‘ishshah are found together, ha’adam refers to the man only. But when only the word ha’adam is found, it refers to the man and woman collectively, as seen in Gen 1.26-27. Hence in Gen 3:22-24 God expels both the man and the woman from the Garden, for although the woman had been deceived to sin, under the Law even unintentional sin demanded a restitution.
“Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the human has become like one of Us, to know good and evil. And now, lest he put out his hand and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”– 23 therefore the LORD God sent him out of the garden of Eden to till the ground from which he was taken. 24 So He drove out the human; and He placed cherubim at the east of the garden of Eden, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to guard the way to the tree of life.”
To limit the above to only Adam makes a good case again for the comps since they argue that the woman was not created to till the ground as the man’s co-worker. Instead she was created to be a “homemaker” although there was no home, no dishes, no kids, no laundry etc.
The first man is referred to as Adam for the first time in Gen 3:17:
“And unto Adam he said, Because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which I commanded thee, saying, Thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life;
And again in Gen 4:25:
“And Adam knew his wife again; and she bare a son, and called his name Seth: For God, said she, hath appointed me another seed instead of Abel, whom Cain slew.”
The difference is the lack of haa’ in the beginning and hence Strong’s has assigned 120 to haa’adam and 121 to Adam. (Yes, I dislike Strong’s as much as you, but that was the one I had handy)
Thanks Susanna. I think there might be two more that mention life being in the blood.
ha’adam with the definate article means “the human” to be more precise as in Gen 1 & 2 & 3 but in Gen 5 ha’adam without the definate article “the” refers to the race “human” as their name showing that ha’adam does not denote gender. In Gen 2 then, it says that God made “the human” (the man of Gen 2) in his image and that he made “them” male and female (woman “cloned” from man). Their name is “human” or humanity.
Strange argument indeed! God called us “human”, not “male”. He’s arguing from an English standpoint since we have “mankind” as a name of the race but it is interchangable with “humankind”. Neither in the English or Hebrew do the words denote gender. That’s laughable.
Exactly! Animals are male too – GEN 1 “and he created them male and female”. These Hebrew terms for “male” and “female” are used of animals that boarded Noah’s Ark. Point is that these inspired terms are contrasted to ha’adam (“the human) in Gen 1 showing that ha’adam doesn’t denot sex, which shoudl be obvious outside of certain mind sets.
Exactly! Gen 1 all over again. “He made them male and female”.
Besides not only was the man banished but he alone became unlike God whereas through the woman’s seed the savior was prophesied to come. They sinned differently. One was deceived and the other was not.
One man brought sin into the world – the one who became unlike God – it makes perfect sense.
Sin’s entry was through that which was unlike God.
Not with the definate article though which is used in Gen 1. Compare Gen 5:
There’s no definate article here making a singular like there is in Gen 1 and Gen 3 (where the man alone is banished).
I don’t think it can make a good case at all for the comps. What case anyway? I’ve not seen a scripturaly established comp case built yet, ever.
anti-spam word = adam ;P
Who’s ha’adam in 3:22? Context (v23) says it’s “the man” singularily since it absolutely cannot be argued that woman was taken from the ground.
So if one is going to say that in v23 both were banished then one must also say that woman was banished also and to serve the ground (outside of Eden) from which she had been taken! And that is impossible since we know that only the man was taken from the ground. Case closed 🙂
Pinklight: Although the woman was made of the man’s side her origin is of the dust of the earth, just as a child who is born of a mother, for both men and women become dust after dying; Eve did not become a rib (or whatever Eve was made of), neither do we go back to our mother’s womb and become embryos. All humans find their origin in the first man: what he was, we all are. Hence to argue that only to man is referred to in Gen 3 is to say that only he would return to dust whence he was taken from.
Ha’adam refers to a human, whether male or female, in all instances where it is found in the Bible.
Gen 9:6
Whoso sheddeth man’s (ha’adam) blood, by man shall his blood be shed. For in the image of God made he man. (ASV)
Ex 9:19
Now therefore send, hasten in thy cattle and all that thou hast in the field; (for) every man (ha’adam) and beast that shall be found in the field, and shall not be brought home, the hail shall come down upon them, and they shall die. (ASV)
Ex 33:20
But He said, “You cannot see My face, for no man (ha’adam) can see Me and live!” (NAS)
Etc, etc.
There are 522 instances in which ha’adam is used, and only 10 in which ‘Adam is used as a name for the first man without the definite article. A Jewish commentator, when asked why Eve was not given a name until after the fall, answered: because her name was ‘adam, i.e. human, the same as the man’s, for they were both human. The writer, when wishing to emphasize that there were two humans, writes ha’adam and ishshah; when emphasis is not needed, he uses ha’adam of both. Of course ha’adam referred only to the man when the woman was not present for he was the only human alive. In Gen 1 and 5 it is clear that ha’adam includes both the male and the female. In the creation story found in Gen 2 the emphasis is in the fact that the one created human becomes two distinct persons; both equally human, yet different because one was a male and the other a female.
“Gem” wrote a comment on my blog (http://submissiontyranny.blogspot.com/2009/06/prepare-to-be-surprised.html#comments) that a woman being a keeper at home actually means she is to be a guardian, a security guard. That led me to see what it meant for Adam to “keep” the garden. Indeed, it too means he is to guard the garden.
In other words, Adam was the security guard and also was to serve and till the garden before Eve came on the scene.
If the security guard at the jewelry store took the diamonds himself, he would be fired promptly and banished from the store. It wouldn’t matter if his wife came in and tried on jewelry and took it, the owner would still hold the security guard responsible–and doubly so if the guard himself not only didn’t stop his wife, but took some himself. Notice that he put Cherubims and a flaming sword at the east of the garden to do the security guard job Adam was supposed to do. Adam not only sinned through disobedience, he also sinned through stealing from and betraying his boss. The male, Adam, could not be trusted with God’s precious possessions, did not respect his employer’s rules, and thus was banished from the “store.”
There is no indication that Eve was told to not eat of the fruit of the tree, because Adam was told before she even came into being. To me, this is not about Adam being the leader, with the exception that he “leads” by being created first. Instead it is about God having spoken directly to Adam, not to Eve concerning the tree, because she had not yet been formed.
Now, a person can read the word of God and gain insight. But there are times where God quickens the word to our hearts because the Spirit is speaking directly to us. Those encounters are much more meaningful than simple reading of the word. In the same way, the word Adam got was directly from God and hit him hard. Eve, however, in presumably getting it second hand from Adam, who was catching her up on what she had missed, heard it like a simple reading of the word. There was no “rhema” as there had been for Adam.
The words Eve said, that she was not even to touch the fruit, words God did not say, suggests that Adam tried very hard to impress upon her the depth and seriousness of what God had told him, by adding to God’s command. It also suggests she was to help him be security guard, but that she was more like a “subcontractor.” The contractor is still the responsible party, and the contractor must pass all info to the subcontractor, who has a separate accounting system, is responsible for the job, yet is likely to get most directions from the contractor, because the one hiring them doesn’t want to say it twice, and the two are seldom in the same place at the same time..
However, the woman apparently also had a place of authority that is higher than a subcontractor. If she was Adam’s assistant, as some suggest, or even a subcontractor, God would not have called her to account. Calling Adam to account would have been enough, and Adam would have been responsible for calling his wife to account. But that is not how God did it. He called each of them to account, which suggests Eve had security guard authority equal to Adam’s, even though she got the information second hand.
The real differentiation is that Eve was deceived, but Adam did it on purpose. To Eve, the serpent’s words were just as authorative as Adam’s had been. The serpent was merely giving Eve “updated” information–Eve thought. She had no reason to believe anyone would tell her a lie or deceive her. She had never heard of or experienced deception before, so she had no idea what to guard against. It is unknown whether Adam heard the serpent. But even if he did, he would still have God’s own words ringing in his ears. His act of eating the fruit was a deliberate and possibly premeditated act of disobedience.
Concerning whether God banished Eve from the garden, I notice the singular “the” is used in referring to “the man,” meaning the male, but only uses “man” when referring to both male and female. Gen 1:27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them.” The writer goes out of his way to clarify that he means both male and female in this instance, where “man” is used without “the.” In verse 28, says And God blessed THEM and said unto THEM. When “the man” is bannished from the garden, the singular suggests Adam was the one driven out. However, I would expect Eve went with him, since her desire was now for her husband’s affection.
Sue,
“I think Waneta Dawn has the right take on this in her most recent post on the Submission Tyranny blog.”
Thanks for your comment! Hannah was over here, and alerted me that my name was being used, so I came over to check it out. You folks are doing real well without my input, yet I can’t resist a good discussion. 🙂
Susanna,
A must read for the topic at hand!
http://strivetoenter.com/wim/2008/08/28/the-sin-of-the-man/
That logic does not follow. It does not follow that only the man would return to dust if God forced only him out of the garden, just as it does not follow that only the man would return to dust if God cursed the ground only on his account.
Gen 2 is how it all went down regarding the creation of the man and woman therefore Gen 1 is a view from further away. God creates the human (Gen 1:26 AND 2:7) in his image, then God works somekind of cloning process and the woman comes from the man (Gen 1:27 “he made them male and female” & Gen 2:22 & 23). And since the grammar is singular in Gen 1:26, “the human” then refers to Adam, the first human being just as the singular in Gen 3 does. But in Gen 5 “adam” is singular collective for the name of the race as it is used without the definate article unlike Gen 1, 2 and 3.
That’s the scooby and my final thoughts for the night ;P
”that a woman being a keeper at home actually means she is to be a guardian, a security guard.”
I’ve read Gem’s ideas on that and appreciate them. The word is oikourus. It is literally ‘home-see-ers’. And that does come out to be a guardian. This actually ties in with the fact that ezer in Hebrew is a strong word meaning defend and protect rather than the diminuitive ‘assistance’ that some assume. She was the help that allayed his aloneness, and in the helping would become his personal defender and protecter.
”Eve, however, in presumably getting it second hand from Adam, who was catching her up on what she had missed, heard it like a simple reading of the word. There was no “rhema” as there had been for Adam.
The words Eve said, that she was not even to touch the fruit, words God did not say, suggests that Adam tried very hard to impress upon her the depth and seriousness of what God had told him, by adding to God’s command.”
It has long been presumed that Eve was treated with less respect than Adam by having to get everything secondhand, but it is a presumption that is not upheld in Scripture. Eve herself said that ‘God said’. She did not say that ‘Adam said we are not to eat’ or that ‘Adam said that God said’ or that ‘Adam said he was not to eat’. Eve said that God said ‘we, she and Adam, were not to eat’. At that point in time, they had not sinned. One way we know this is that their nakedness was still not known. Their nakedness was not discovered until after they had sinned. Eve being pure and naïve’ was not familiar with lying. Eve did not lie when she said that God said they were not to eat. This suggests that she got it directly from God. Scripture does not have all of the conversations between God and the first humans recorded. We have only the briefest of accounts. I am certain that many more conversations happened between the first two humans and God than we are privy to.
As well, there is the fact that every time ‘not eating’ is mentioned by God He said it differently. Cheryl has some good research on that. Thus, there is still no reason to not believe that God said she was not to even touch the fruit of the tree. We don’t know the reason, but we can justly assume that there was one. Perhaps, the woman was more tactile oriented and liked to touch and feel everything. And perhaps, God knew that could cause her to be enticed by it. We just don’t know.
It is not because Eve didn’t have enough information about the prohibition of the tree that she was deceived. It was because the serpent that beguiled her was the cleverest of all creatures and he pulled out his most deceptive tactics in order to fool her.
“Hence to argue that only to man is referred to in Gen 3 is to say that only he would return to dust whence he was taken from.”
I look at it differently. To say that the man is to be ejected from the garden to till the ground from which he was taken is an identifier. Only the man was created directly from the ground and it was the ground outside of the garden. Thus it also identified that he was created outside of the garden. None of those identifiers applies to the woman.
Yet, of course she will also return to dust because being recreated from the man, her physical essence also contained the elements of the dirt. But she was not created from the dirt as the man was. She was recreated, reformed from the side of the man, taking the elements from his flesh and bones.
“Gen 2 is how it all went down regarding the creation of the man and woman therefore Gen 1 is a view from further away.”
Astutely stated!
Pinklight, my women’s Bible Study is going through the book of Genesis. So far, there have been at least two other instances where Moses wrote in that style: stating it briefly first and then detailing the events. One I think was the Babylon incident.
Hmmm? – Humans?
Came from the dust of the earth?
Going back to the dust of the earth?
Looked under my bed this morning…
Someone’s either coming or going…
Yes, Gen 2:7 tells us that he was taken from the ground outside of the garden because after God takes him from the ground then God plants a garden in Eden and Gen 2:8 tells us that God then puts the man inside the garden, and so Gen 3:23 tells us that the man is going to serve the ground outside the garden from which he was taken which could only have been the man.
And what I find very interesting is that after God made him from outside the garden, he placed him inside the garden to serve it, Gen 2:15, but when he is being forced outside the garden he is to serve the ground outside the garden from which he was taken. So he was originaly to serve the garden but now after he sins he is to serve the ground outside the garden from which he was taken.
Cool! And I wouldn’t be surprised… ;P
Let me fine tune my last statement of the paragraph above:
But in Gen 5 AND Gen 1:26 (God’s intention to create the race) “adam” is singular collective for the name of the race as it is used without the definate article unlike Gen 1:27, 2 and 3.
http://gengwall.blogspot.com/2008/09/this-is-another-in-series-of-entries-i.html
gengwall’s ontop of it! You go gengwall! 🙂
Since TL already answered the points I was going to, I will leave the discussion with a note from Robert Alter, a professor in Hebrew and Comparative literature:
“The term ‘adam, afterward consistently with a definite article, which is used both here [Genesis 1:27] and in the second account of the origins of humankind, is a generic term for human beings, not a proper noun. It also does not automatically suggest maleness, especially not without the prefix ben, “son of,” and so the traditional rendering “man” is misleading, an exclusively male ‘adam would make nonsense of the last clause of verse 27.”
Mark, I am going to post a response to you later tonight.
The Subjection of the Son
The era of 330-700 CE in Church history can be divided into three sections: 1. The discussion about the relationship between the Son and the Father; 2. The discussion about relationship between the God and Man in Christ; 3. Iconoclasm.
The Christological discussions were prompted by the spreading of two distinct teachings:
1. Arianism by Arius, who taught that the Son was a created being, for if the Godhead is one ultimate and self-sufficient principle, it cannot contain more than a single unity. If the Son and the Father are distinct persons, both cannot be part of the single self-sufficient first principle and hence the Son must be subordinated to the Father.
2. Sabellianism by Sabellius, who taught that the Father and Son were identical in being, and only different modes, or expressions, of the one God.
These two suggestions both attempted to explain the problem of the Trinity: how can one single entity contain more than one person? The theologians of the fourth century responded by rejecting both Arianism and Sabellianism in favor of a Christology which recognized one first principle, the Father, who is unbegotten, and His Son, who is begotten by the Father, hence creating two separate entities, without jeopardizing the unity of the Godhead and creating two Gods without a beginning.
Gregory of Nazianzen, called “The Theologian” wrote in response to Arianism:
“For as these low earthly minds make the Son subject to the Father, so again is the rank of the Spirit made inferior to that of the Son, until both God and created life are insulted by the new Theology. No, my friends, there is nothing servile in the Trinity, nothing created, nothing accidental, as I have heard one of the wise say.”
Contrary to Arianism, in modern theology the subjection of the Son is found in the sending of the Son: the Father sends and the Son obeys by coming to the world. However, this would make the Son subject to the Spirit, since also the Spirit sent the Son. Yet, also the Son sent the Spirit, hence Ambrose, bishop of Milan wrote:
“Who is it Who says: The Lord God hath sent Me and His Spirit, except He Who came from the Father that He might save sinners? And, as you hear, the Spirit sent Him, lest when you hear that the Son sends the Spirit, you should believe the Spirit to be of inferior power. So both the Father and the Spirit sent the Son; the Father sent Him, for it is written: “But the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, Whom the Father will send in My Name.” The Son sent Him, for He said: “But when the Paraclete is come, Whom I will send unto you from the Father, even the Spirit of Truth.” If, then, the Son and the Spirit send each other, as the Father sends, there is no inferiority of subjection, but a community of power.”
Although modern theologians refuse to admit it, in the fourth century subjection was synonymous with inferiority, hence the subjection of women did not become part of theology until their inferiority to the man was well established at the end of the second century. If the Son is subject to the Father, he must also be inferior, the conclusion Arius came to.
Subjection entails not only inferiority but being under the power of another’s will, for obedience removes one’s free will. Basil argued in his comment on John 5:19 that the Son would be lower than the humans He created if He is subject to the Father’s authority:
“If freedom of action is better than subjection to control, and a man is free, while the Son of God is subject to control, then the man is better than the Son. This is absurd. And if he who is subject to control cannot create free beings (for he cannot of his own will confer on others what he does not possess himself), then the Saviour, since He made us free, cannot Himself be under the control of any. If the Son could do nothing of Himself, and could only act at the bidding of the Father, He is neither good nor bad. He was not responsible for anything that was done. Consider the absurdity of the position that men should be free agents both of good and evil, while the Son, who is God, should be able to do nothing of His own authority!”
Already before the Arian controversy, Tertullian had answered Marcion, whose dualism made the God of the Old Testament an inferior god.
“Since therefore he [Marcion] is obliged to acknowledge that the God whom he does not deny is the great Supreme, it is inadmissible that he should predicate of the Supreme Being such a diminution as should subject Him to another Supreme Being, for He ceases (to be Supreme), if He becomes subject to any. Besides, it is not the characteristic of God to cease from any attribute of His divinity – say, from His supremacy.”
If the Son is subject to the Father’s will and His authority, He cannot be omnipotent and supreme, i.e. God, at the same time, wherefore Ambrose stated in his work Exposition of the Christian Faith, “If the one name and right of God belong to both the Father and the Son, since the Son of God is also true God, and a King eternal, the Son of God is not made subject in His Godhead.”
Ambrose continued:
“For if He were made subject through His nature, He would always remain in subjection; but since He is said to be made subject in time, that subjection must be part of an assumed office and not of an everlasting weakness: especially as the eternal Power of God cannot change His state for a time, neither can the right of ruling Fall to the Father in time. For if the Son ever will be changed in such wise as to be made subject in His Godhead, then also must God the Father, if ever He shall gain more power, and have the Son in subjection to Himself in His Godhead, be considered now in the meantime inferior according to your explanation.”
Basil agreed with Ambrose, for he wrote, “If the Son is subjected to the Father in the Godhead, then He must have been subjected from the beginning, from whence He was God. But if He was not subjected, but shall be subjected, it is in the manhood, as for us, not in the Godhead, as for Himself.”
The Son is said to become subject to the Father after He delivers the Kingdom to the Father (1 Cor. 15:24). Hilary of Poiters wrote that the Son cannot cease to possess the Kingdom after delivering it to the Father, for it would mean that the Father “lost all, when He delivered all to Son” (Luke 10:22), and it would also have included all authority (Matt. 28:18). Since “the Father did not cease to possess that which he delivered, neither does the Son surrender that which He delivers.” The delivering is therefore about the dispensation, not the Kingdom itself.
“When all things are subjected to Him, says He, then must He be subjected to Him, Who subjects all things to Himself; and by this ‘then’ he means to denote the temporal Dispensation. For if we put any other construction on the subjection, Christ, though then to be subjected, is not subjected now, and thus we make Him an insolent and impious rebel, whom the necessity of time, breaking as it were and subduing His profane and overweening pride, will reduce to a tardy obedience.”
Hilary recognized that the Son could not be subject in His incarnation and become subject at the end of His work as the Mediator for a person cannot be subjected more than once.
Hilary pointed also out that throughout the New Testament, when one person of the Trinity is spoken of the same is also true of the others. Thus we find that although the Father places all things under the feet of the Son, also the Son subjects all things under His own feet (Phil. 3:21) for, “through the birth the nature of God is abiding in the Son, and does that which He Himself [God] does.”
Because the context of the subjecting of all things to the Son in Philippians 3:21 is resurrection, Hilary made the following observation.
“The Apostle tells us also of the special reward attained by this subjection which is made perfect by the subjection of belief: Who shall fashion anew the body of our humiliation, that it may be conformed to the body of His glory, according to the works of His power, whereby He is able to subject all things to Himself. There is then another subjection, which consists in a transition from one nature to another, for our nature ceases, so far as its present character is concerned, and is subjected to Him, into Whose form it passes. But by ‘ceasing’ is implied not an end of being, but a promotion into something higher. Thus our nature by being merged into the image of the other nature which it receives, becomes subjected through the imposition of a new form.”
Also the second century Bishop Irenaeus wrote that, “being in subjection to God is continuance in immortality, and immortality is the glory of the uncreated One.” Hence the subjection of the Son signifies the translation of the body of the Son to become once more God only as He relinquishes His resurrected human form.
Augustine emphasized further that a clear distinction exists between the humanity and divinity of Christ.
“For, because He Himself, being the first-begotten of the dead, made a passage to the kingdom of God to life eternal for His Church, to which He is so the Head as to make the body also immortal, therefore He was “created in the beginning of the ways” of God in His work. For, according to the form of God, He is the beginning, that also speaketh unto us, in which “beginning” God created the heaven and the earth; but according to the form of a servant, “He is a bridegroom coming out of His chamber.” According to the form of God, “He is the first-born of every creature, and He is before all things and by him all things consist;” according to the form of a servant, “He is the head of the body, the Church.” According to the form of God, “He is the Lord of glory.” From which it is evident that He Himself glorifies His saints: for, “Whom He did predestinate, them He also called; and whom He called, them He also justified; and whom He justified, them He also glorified.” Of Him accordingly it is said, that He justifieth the ungodly; of Him it is said, that He is just and a justifier. I
f, therefore, He has also glorified those whom He has justified, He who justifies, Himself also glorifies; who is, as I have said, the Lord of glory. Yet, according to the form of a servant, He replied to His disciples, when inquiring about their own glorification: “To sit on my right hand and on my left is not mine to give, but [it shall be given to them] for whom it is prepared by my Father.”
Augustine agreed with Hilary in that “what is said of each [of the persons in the Trinity] is also said of all, on account of the indivisible working of the one and same substance.” Therefore, in His humanity the Son affirmed that it is impossible for a human to perform the works He did on his on, wherefore the works were the Father’s. Yet, “take care you understand also, that if ‘all things which the Father hath are mine,’ then this certainly is mine also, and I with the Father have prepared these things.”
In His humanity the Son learned obedience by the things he suffered (Heb. 5:7-9). Not that he had to learn it for Himself, for He always did what was pleasing to the Father. Instead, as Gregory of Nazianzen explained:
“For in His character of the Word He was neither obedient nor disobedient. For such expressions belong to servants, and inferiors, and the one applies to the better sort of them, while the other belongs to those who deserve punishment. But, in the character of the Form of a Servant, He condescends to His fellow servants, nay, to His servants, and takes upon Him a strange form, bearing all me and mine in Himself, that in Himself He may exhaust the bad, as fire does wax, or as the sun does the mists of earth; and that I may partake of His nature by the blending. Thus He honours obedience by His action, and proves it experimentally by His Passion. For to possess the disposition is not enough, just as it would not be enough for us, unless we also proved it by our acts; for action is the proof of disposition.”
Thus the obedience of the Son was for our benefit, exercised only during His Incarnation, leading to His death for the sake of our sins.
Phil 2:5-8
Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.
And being found in appearance as a man,
he humbled himself
and became obedient to death-
even death on a cross!
The Son was equal to the Father before becoming a human. Subjection cannot co-exist with equality regardless of the great effort of complementarists to convince us otherwise, for what is equality if not the absence of subjection? One is not equal if one does not have equal say; a lesson learned from friendship. In His resurrected Incarnation the Son is subject to the Godhead in His humanity and in His role as the High Priest, but He is also exalted above all as the Lord and Savior and the Father has given Him all authority. As a human He shared in all aspects of our lives, but as God, He shares all aspects of the Godhead. Hence the Son has never been in complete subjection to the Father, for in His divinity He raised Himself, just as the Spirit and the Father are said to have raised Him. He healed the sick, forgave sins, raised the dead and judged those who did not heed His words. Only God can do these. Yet, in His humanity He was dependent of the Father, said the Father was greater than He, and asked for the will of the Father to be done. Because the subjection of the Son is needed in order to enforce the subjection of the woman to the man, the comparison is attempted, but it is not possible, for the Son, even in His incarnated form, possessed greater power and authority than a human ever will.
The beginning of the “economy” of subjection within the Trinity seems to have begun with Calvin, who rejected the belief that the Son was begotten by the Father. I am still in the middle of reading his Institutes so I cannot really tell you why he came to the conclusion quite yet. I do know that he did not receive it from the Scholastics. Thomas Aquinas followed Augustine in rejecting the subjection of the Son in the thirteenth century. Calvin wrote in the sixteenth, so something happened along the way. I am trying to find out what that something was.
I disagree with the professor and methinks that he has left out some details in the equation. Once ALL details are considered, I don’t think there is a question as to what “ha’adam” in 1:27a means.
Only one human being of the two in chp 2 is referred to as “the human” and also “man” (male) while the second human being is only refered to as “woman” (female). Therefore Gen 1:27a does not refer to both collectively if it is to Completely, Completely coincide with what is written in chp 2 since the woman in chp 2 is never refered to as “the human”. Then, 1:27b also completely coincides with chp 2 because only at the point where the second human being is designated to be female, “woman” is at the same point in Gen 2 where the first human being is designated to be male, “man”. Ofcourse none of this can bring into question the human nature of Eve. Now if the ish (man) and ishshah (woman)were created at the same time in Gen 2, then I could see ha’adam to mean “humankind”. So 1:27a is a view on Adam’s creation and 1:27b is a view on when woman was taken from man.
Pinklight’s Literal Version:
And what I’m arguing for may seem like it would support the comp position that only “man” was made in the direct image of God – Bruce Ware, except that the text 1:27a literaly reads “THE HUMAN” was made in the image of God, not “THE MAN” or “THE MALE” (Caps for emphasis) and 1:27b “male” and “female” are words chosen by inspiration that are contrasted with ha’adam because they are Hebrew words that denote sex for either human beings or animals (see Noah’s Ark) showing that sex wasn’t made in God’s image. The written word is Precise indeed! If 1:27a had said “the man” was made in God’s image then Bruce ware would of had a case to begin with. So I don’t believe in exchanging biblical words with our own when on the topic of doctrine cause that is what will get us in a mess, like the one Ware is in.
If woman’s equality of humanity being made in God’s image can be questioned based on 1:27a then it could be questioned as to whether or not when God made the human from the dust of the ground, if he had made him male at that time or if he made the human, male when he made woman since the first time his gender is mentioned is only at woman’s creation. I think it’s ridiculous to question either. It doesn’t directly say when God made the human, male. It doesn’t directly say that woman is equally human either. I bet the first human was made male at the time his body was formed from the dirt, (because he next had to identify female from male animals at the least when he named the animals…) and that woman is equally human, (Gen 1:26, God intended to make “humankind” – “them” in his image) therefore the direct image of God.
Okay, I’m done speaking my mind for now 🙂 thanks!
Though it’s been a few days since I last commented on Mark’s postings regarding 1 Cor. 11:3, this inactivity has not been due to a lack of interest in the key issues being debated in connection with this text, I asure you. Rather, it’s been due to the necessary and unavoidable demands and challenges of daily life. Moreover, I have been carefully reviewing Mark’s material and the critiques given it by the various responders. The last thing I have desired to do was “wade into the pond” and further stir-up and muddy the waters, as it were, by offering unhelpful and irrelevant comments. Nevertheless, like Cheryl and several other visitors to this website, I have been gifted, called and trained to be both a minister of Christ and a guardian of the Gospel Faith. And to have such a gifting and calling from the Spirit not only involves the prayerful, careful study and exposition of Scripture, but also the faithful guarding and passing on of the Apostolic “deposit of truth” to other gifted and “trustworthy people who will be able to pass it on” as well (cf. 2 Tim. 1:13-14 and 2:1-2, 15, NLT).
At first, I was going to place this commentary at Mark’s previous posting. But on the basis of the on-going criticism regarding the Trinity and the Subordinationist use of 1 Cor. 11:3 found here, I have chosen to place it on this posting. So I will begin by revisiting some key issues connected with the Trinity and what I regard as Subordinationists’ misuse of 1 Cor. 11:3. Then, afterwards, I intend to make some comments regarding both the NT’s expectation and approval of men and women praying and prophesying together during congregational worship, for the purpose of mutual instruction and encouragement, as enabled and led by the Spirit–which, contra complementarians, is the teaching not only of 1 Cor. 11:2-14:40, but also of Rom. 12:3-8; Col. 3:12-17; Eph. 5:10-20; and 1 Pet. 4:7-11. So let me begin with my comments regarding the Trinity and 1 Cor. 11:3.
I think it is safe to say that most of those who read Cheryl’s website are convinced that the true and faithful proclamation, defense and confirmation of the Christian Faith in our day of intellectual and moral relativism is a real life and death matter. How much more necessary, then, is the faithful and uncompromising proclamation, defense and confirmation of the Doctrine of the Trinity–which is the heart and center of all other Christian belief and practice? Julia Castle-Wright explains as follows:
Trinitarian formulations were carefully worded to express precisely what it was the Scriptures taught about God. The effect of each term or phrase on the whole doctrine was always considered. The writers were as much aware of what they were NOT saying as they were of the positive teaching. The Councils refuted false doctrine, and warned against saying too much or saying too little. We can be assured that the Church knew what it did NOT believe as well as it knew the recognized dogma all Christians were to believe. If we get this fundamental doctrine wrong, there is little hope of formulating a systematic expression of the common faith that has any relation to the God who is revealed in Scripture. Our knowledge and belief about also profoundly affects our worship of God. The Athanasian Creed boldly declares, “This is what the catholic faith teaches: we worship one God in Trinity and Trinity in unity; we distinguish among the Persons, but we do not divide the substance” (Schaff, 1972). We must know the One who saves us; we must know whom we worship. To be in error on the Doctrine of God is to be subject to error in every other area of the Faith…Our doctrine of God affects ecclesiology (the doctrine of the Church), hamartiology (the nature of sin), anthropology (the doctrine of humanity), the doctrine of marriage (and incidently, our practice of marriage), and the relationship of men and women. Because these doctrines are interrelated, a flawed understanding of the relationship of men and women in the Church and in marriage can lead to a false view of the Being and nature of God. We should not begin with men and women, but with the nature and Being of God as revealed in Scripture (cf. “Subordination in the Trinity?,” The Journal of Biblical Equality, Vol. 3, June 1991, pp. 32-33).
Furthermore, all orthodox theologians, from Athanasius until now, have contended that a wrong understanding of the Trinity also adversely affects the doctrines of salvation through Christ Jesus and of sanctification by the Holy Spirit. So it is not a light matter to trifle with the Doctrine of the Trinity, by anyone for any reason. And I think that, at least on this point, we would all agree. Now to those points where I and others strongly disagree with Mark on the hierarchical ranking of the Three Persons within the Triune God.
Mark, in your reply to Pinklight’s critique of your viewpoint (Comment #158) on the previous posting, you stated, “Yes, think Jesus is equally God, and equal in essence, power, authority, etc., to both the Father and the Holy Spirit. However, I do think that Jesus is ‘subordinate’ in relation to his subsistence. For example, Jesus is sent from the Father, and the Holy Spirit is sent from the Father and the Son. The Son never sends the Father, and likewise with the Spirit. This is what the Bible teaches in regards to the ‘subsistence’ of the members of the Trinity, and the Early Church Fathers and the Reformers commented on a difference between the economic and essential Trinity. One in relation to ‘essence,’ one to ‘subsistence’. Any thorough research of the Bible and history will confirm what I am saying, but of course, an egalitarian cannot accept this because it means that man and woman can be equal yet different in terms of roles. Therefore they must reject the orthodox position of the Trinity.” Let us unpack and examine this statement, exposing several confusing, contradictory, and misleading elements for those who may have not followed this debate as fully as some others:
1. “Any thorough research of the Bible and history will confirm what I am saying, but of course, an egalitarian cannot accept this because it means that men and women can be equal but different in terms of roles. Therefore they must reject the orthodox position of the Trinity.” Well, Mark, many of us were orthodox Trinitarians long before we became egalitarians. In the Independent Baptist church I grew up in Michigan, we recited the Nicene Creed and were taught that only Jehovah’s Witnesses denied the coequality and coeternity of the Son and the Spirit with that of the Father. And it was they, not us, who used the “sending of the Son and Spirit” and “The Father is greater than I” arguments to prove that both Jesus and the Spirit were less divine that Jehovah himself. Therefore, this novel doctrine of the eternal subordination of the Son to the Father was unheard of among Independent Baptists in the 1950’s and 1960’s when I was a lad. Furthermore, I think the treatment that Cheryl, myself and others have already given both of the pertinent Scriptures and of the writings of the Early Church Fathers and the Reformers shows that, contrary to what you say, thorough study of Scripture and of the historical, theological writings of the Church disprove that the eternal subordination of the Son and Spirit to the Father is the same as or even compatible with the orthodox teaching regarding the Trinity.
And in addition to this, I would also point out what I think is obvious to everyone: It is one thing to argue that the Three Persons are both equal in Being and distinct as Persons. But it is quite another to argue that They are truly equal in every way as Deity and yet, because they are distinguished as different Persons, therefore must of necessity and at the same time, exist in an eternal, hierarchically ranked order, recognized only by the rigid and unchanging division of labor among the Three Persons. Not only does such an argument violate what the Scriptures and the Creeds teach about the true Unity and Diversity of the Three Persons, but it also violates what they teach about the unity, harmony and inseparability of the Three Persons in the divine works of creation and redemption.
But if you really desire some additional evidence for my contention on this point, I will now utilize the “confirmation by two or three reliable witnesses rule” of Scripture that Cheryl has so well explained and encouraged us to follow. Here are my three witnesses, given in reversed, chronological order of importance:
a. John Owen, Puritan theologian and member of Parliment: “All external operations of the Trinity are indivisible. Every Person is the author of every work of God, because each Person is God, and the divine nature is the same undivided principle of all divine operations” (Cf.The Works of John Owen, Vol. 3, Banner of Truth Trust, 1968).
b. Augustine, African bishop, theologian and apologist: “The Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are of one and the same substance or essence…[and they] constitute a divine unity of one and the same indivisible equality. The three have the same eternity, immutability, majesty, power…the will of the Father and the Son is one and their operation inseparable…when one of the Three is mentioned as the author of any work, the whole Trinity is to be understood as working” (Cf. The Fathers of the Church: Saint Augustine, The Trinity, The Catholic University of America Press, 1963).
c. Paul, Apostle of Christ, theologian and apologist: “There are different kinds of spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit is the source of them all. There are different kinds of service, but we serve the same Lord. God works in different ways, but it is the same God who does the work in all of us” (1 Cor. 12:4-6, NLT).
2. “Jesus is sent from the Father, and the Holy Spirit is sent from the Father and the Son. The Son never sends the Father, and likewise with the Spirit. This is what the Bible teaches in regards to the subsistence of the members of the members of the Trinity, and the Early Church Fathers and the Reformers commented on a difference between the economic and essential Trinity. One in relation to ‘essence,’ one to subsistence.'” Let’s see, you are saying that the Early Church Fathers and the Reformers were agreed that there was a difference between the Ontological Trinity and the Economic Trinity, which you designate as the “essential Trinity” and the “economic Trinity.” Okay, I will agree that the two are to be distinguished: The Ontological Trinity has to do with the eternal, inward and personal interrelations of the Triune God, while the Economic Trinity has to do with the temporal and external relations and operations of the Triune God as regards creation and redemption.
But while I will agree that they are connected and that the Economic Trinity “flows out” of the Ontological Trinity, I do not agree that they are fully identical, in every way. For there is some very real important continuity and discontinuity between these two. Remember, I have already addressed this in one of my earlier comments on this difference:
[A]ll agreed with Athanasius and Basil that the Three Persons could not be understood as three different appearances or modes of action in creation and redemption by God. Since God is eternal, God’s Triunity must also be eternal. So the Three Persons, if truly divine, must have real being without and before God’s actions in creation and redemption, since both creation and redemption are not eternal, but temporal in nature. So the various distinguishable temporal actions, operations, or “roles” of God in creation and redemption cannot be essential to the true eternal distinctions or differences between the Persons. If “roles” in creation and redemption were necessary for marking the true distinctions between the Three Persons, then none of them could be said to be eternal, and so there would be a time when there was not a Father, not a Son, not a Spirit. Again, if “roles” or “functions” were necessary for distinguishing the Divine Persons, then there was a time when God was not triune or when the Persons, if they were at all, were not wholly God.
To clarify this issue, let me express it this way: Though the Father has always been the Father of the Son, there was a “time” when he was neither our Creator nor our Father; though the Son has always been the Son of the Father, there was a “time” when he was neither our Redeemer nor our Mediator with the Father; though the Spirit, as the Spirit of the Father and the Son eternally binds together and maintains the mutualy loving and interactive union and communion which is the reality of the eternal and internal life of the Triune God–there was a “time” when the Spirit was neither our Life-Giver nor our Sanctifier. For until the creation of the universe, the fall of humanity, and its consequent need of redemption and reconciliation became a reality outside of and separate from the Triune God, these external and temporal actions, operations, or “roles” were only a potentiality and not an actuality within the Triune God himself. To think otherwise is to violate what most Reformed theologians, such as Cornelius Van Til and Thomas F. Torrance, regard as the “Creator-creature distinction” made by the Scriptures themselves. This confusion of the temporal and the eternal, the Divine and the creaturely, has plagued Christian theology since the days of Origen, who gave birth to the subordinationsim of Arius and others. Torrance explains it this way:
“What Athanasius encountered in the teaching of Origen, in his failure to distinguish between the eternal generation of the Son and the creation of the world, between ontological and cosmological dimensions, is not unlike, it may be said, what is found today in process theology according to which the external relations of God are held in some measure to be consitutive of what he is as God. God is always Father, but he is not always Creator, for in his creative activity God has to do what is ‘external’ to his Being, freely giving existence to what did not exist before, and sustaining it by his will and grace in a creaturely coexitence with himself. Origen’s rather hellenistic failure to distinguish between the ontological and cosmolo